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VIRGIL 


BY  THE 

KEY.  W.  LUCAS  COLLINS,  M.A 

AUTHOR  OF  “ETONIANA  “ THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS,”  BTC, 


NEW  YORK: 

JOHN  B.  ALDEN,  PUBLISHER, 

1885. 


TROW'S 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY# 
NEW  YORK. 


I 

\/q,Y  c*$L 


VA 

V 


CONTENTS. 


*d~ 

ir 

& 


{ 

ii 


. 

H 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 5 

The  Poet 11 

The  Pastorals.  15 

rnE  Georgics 28 

Thf  ^Eneid: 

Chap.  I.  The  Shipwreck  on  the  Coast  of  Carthage 39 

“ II.  AEneas  Relates  the  Fall  of  Troy 50 

“ III.  iEneas  Continues  his  Narrative 59 

“ IV.  Dido 65 

“ V.  The  Funeral  Games 7? 

“ VI.  The  Sibyl  and  the  Shades 94 

“ VII.  The  Trojans  Land  in  Latium 114 

“ VIII.  The  Muster  of  the  Latin  Tribes 121 

“ IX.  iEneas  Makes  Alliance  with  Evander. 128 

“ X.  Turnus  Attacks  the  Trojan  Encampment 135 

“ XI.  The  Death  of  Pallas 142 

“ XII.  The  Death  of  Camilla 147 

“ XIII.  The  Last  Combat 150 

iL  XIV.  Concluding  Remarks. 158 


INTRODUCTION. 


Virgil  has  always  been,  for  one  reason  or  other,  the 
most  popular  of  all  the  old  classical  writers.  His 
poems  were  a favorite  study  with  his  own  countrymen, 
even  in  his  own  generation;  within  fifty  years  of  his 
death  they  were  admitted  to  the  very  questionable 
honor,  which  they  have  retained  ever  since,  of  serv- 
ing as  a text-book  for  schoolboys.  The  little  Romans 
studied  their  iEneid,  from  their  master’s  dictation,  as 
regularly,  and  probably  with  quite  as  much  apprecia- 
tion of  its  beauties,  as  the  fourth  form  of  an  English 
public  school,  and  wrote  “ declamations”  of  some  kind 
upon  its  heroes.  In  the  middle  ages,  when  Greek 
literature  had  become  almost  a deserted  field,  and 
Homer  in  the  original  wras  a sealed  book  even  to 
those  who  considered  themselves  and  were  considered 
scholars,  Virgil  was  still  the  favorite  with  young  and 
old.  Tne  monks  in  their  chronicles,  philosophers  in 
their  secular  studies,  enlivened  their  pages  with  quota- 
tions from  the  one  author  with  whom  no  man  of 
letters  would  venture  to  confess  himself  wholly  un- 
acquainted. The  works  of  Virgil  had  passed  through 
above  forty  editions  in  Europe  before  the  first  printed 
edition  of  Homer  appeared  from  the  Florence  press  in 
1448.  He  has  been  translated,  imitated,  and  parodied 
in  all  the  chief  European  languages.  The  fate  of 
Dido,  of  Pallas,  and  of  Euryalus  has  drawn  tears 
from  successive  generations  of  which  the  poet  never 
dreamed. 


VIRGIL. 


In  the  middle  ages  his  fame  underwent  a singular 
transformation.  From  the  magic  power  of  song  the 
transition  seems  incongruous  to  the  coarser  material 
agency  of  the  wizard.  But  so  it  was;  Virgilius  the 
poet  became,  in  mediaeval  legends,  Virgilius  the  magi- 
cian. One  of  his  Eclogues  (the  Eighth),  in  which  are 
introduced  the  magical  charms  by  which  it  is  sought 
to  reclaim  a wandering  lover,  is  supposed  to  have 
given  the  first  impulse  to  this  superstitious  belief.  All 
kinds  of  marvels  were  attributed  to  his  agency.  It 
was  said  that  he  built  at  Rome,  for  the  Emperor 
Augustus,  a wondrous  tower,  in  which  were  set  up 
emblematic  figures  of  all  the  subject  nations  which 
acknowledged  the  imperial  rule,  each  with  a bell  in 
its  hand,  which  rang  out  whenever  wTar  or  revolt  broke 
out  in  that  particular  province,  so  that  Rome  knew  at 
once  in  what  direction  to  march  her  legions.  In  the 
same  building — so  the  legend  ran — he  contrived  a 
magic  mirror,  in  which  the  enemies  of  the  Empire 
could  be  seen  wiien  they  appeared  in  arms;  and 
another — surely  the  most  terrible  agency  that  was  ever 
imagined  in  the  way  of  domestic  police — in  which  the 
guilt  of  any  Roman  citizen  could  be  at  once  seen  aud 
detected.  A fount  of  perpetual  fire,  and  salt-springs 
of  medicinal  virtue,  were  said  to  have  been  the  gifts  of 
the  great  enchanter  to  the  Roman  populace.  At  Na- 
ples the  marvels  which  were  attributed  to  his  agency 
were  scarcely  less;  and  even  now  there  is  scarcely  any 
useful  or  ornamental  public  work  of  early  date,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  that  city,  which  is  not  in  some  way 
connected  by  vulgar  tradition  with  the  name  of  Virgil. 
The  wondrous  powers  thus  ascribed  to  him  w7ere, 
according  to  some  legends,  conferred  upon  him  by 
Cniron  the  learned  centaur— by  whom  the  great 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


Achilles,  and  the  poet’s  own  hero,  iEueas,  were  said 
to  have  been  educated;  by  others,  with  that  blending 
of  pagan  belief  with  Christian  which  is  so  commonly 
found  in  mediaeval  writers,  they  were  referred  to 
direct  communication  with  the  Evil  One.* 

French  scholars  have  always  had  the  highest  ap- 
preciation of  the  Augustan  poet,  and  his  popularity 
in  England  is  to  this  day  as  great  as  ever.  Even  a 
practical  House  of  Commons,  not  always  very  patient 
of  argument,  and  notoriously  impatient  of  some  prosaic 
speakers,  will  listen  to  a quotation  from  Virgil — 
especially  when  pointed  against  a political  opponent. 
Those  to  whom  his  rolling  measure  is  familiar  still 
quote  him  and  cheer  him  so  enthusiastically,  that 
others  listen  with  more  or  less  appreciation.  To  the 
many  who  have  almost  forgotten  what  they  once  knew 
of  him,  his  lines  awake  reminiscences  of  their  youth — 
which  are  always  pleasant:  while  even  those  to  whom 
he  is  a sound  and  nothing  more,  listen  as  with  a 


* One  story  of  this  kind  is  perhaps  curious  enough  for  inser- 
tion. Virgil  is  said  to  have  been  startled  one  day  by  a voice 
calling  to  him  out  of  a small  hole  in  a cave.  It  proceeded  from 
an  Evil  Spirit  who  had  been  conjured  into  that  place  of  con- 
finement, and  who  undertook  to  show  Virgil  certain  books  of 
necromancy  on  condition  of  his  release.  The  bargain  was 
made,  and  the  condition  fulfilled.  “ He  stood  before  Virgil  like 
a mighty  man,  whereof  Virgil  was  afraid;  and  he  marvelled 
greatly  that  so  great  a man  might  come  out  of  so  little  a hole. 
Then  said  Virgil,  * Should  ye  well  pass  through  the  hole  that 
ye  came  out  of  ? ’ And  he  said,  ‘ Yes.’  ‘ I hold  the  best  pledge 
that  I have  that  ye  cannot  do  it:’  The  devill  said,  ‘I  consent 
thereto.’  And  then  the  devill  wrang  himself  into  the  little 
hole  again.  And  when  he  was  in,  then  Virgil  closed  him  there 
again,  so  that  he  had  no  power  to  come  out  again,  but  there 
abideth  still.”— [“  Of  the  Lyfe  of  Virgilius  and  his  deth,  and 
the  many  marvayles  that  he  dyd.’U 


8 


VIRGIL . 


kind  of  sacred  awe.  The  debates  of  our  reformed 
Parliament  will  certainly  be  duller,  if  ever  Virgil 
comes  to  be  proscribed  as  an  unknown  tongue. 

English  translators  of  Virgil  have  abounded.  But 
the  earliest  and  by  no  means  the  least  able  of  those 
who  presented  the  Homan  poet  to  our  northern 
islanders  in  their  own  vernacular  was  a Scotsman, 
Bishop  Gawain  Douglas  of  Dunkeld,  that  clerkly  son 
of  old  Archibald  “ Bell-the-Cat”  whom  Scott  names 
in  his  “Marmion.”  Few  modern  readers  of  Virgil 
are  likely  to  be  proficients  in  the  ancient  northern 
dialect  which  the  bishop  used;  but  those  who  can 
appreciate  him  maintain  that  there  is  considerable 
vigor  as  well  as  faithfulness  in  his  version.  Thomas 
Phaer,  a Welsh  physician,  was  the  next  who  made 
the  attempt,  in  the  long  verses  known  as  Alexan- 
drine, in  1558.  A few  years  later  came  forth  what 
might  fairly  be  called  the  comic  English  version, 
though  undertaken  in  the  most  serious  earnest  by  the 
translator.  This  was  Richard  Stanyliurst,  an  Irishman, 
a graduate  of  Oxford  and  student  of  Lincoln’s  Inn.  He 
seems  to  have  been  the  original  prophet  of  that  “pes- 
tilent heresy,”  as  Lord  Derby  calls  it,  the  making  of 
English  hexameters;  for  that  was  the  metre  which  he 
chose,  and  he  congratulates  himself  in  his  preface  upon 
“ having  no  English  writer  before  him  in  this  kind  of 
poetry.”  Without  going  so  far  as  to  endorse  Lord 
Derby’s  severe  judgment,  it  may  be  confessed  that  Sta- 
nyhurst  did  his  best  to  justify  it.  His  translation, 
which  he  ushered  into  public  with  the  most  profound 
self-satisfaction,  is  quite  curious  enough  to  account  for 
its  reprint  by  the  “Edinburgh  Printing  Society” in  1836. 
One  of  the  points  upon  which  he  prides  himself  is  the 
suiting  the  sound  to  the  sense,  which  Virgil  himself  has 


INTRODUCTION. 


done  happily  enough  in  some  rare  passages.  So  when 
he  has  to  translate  the  line, 

“Exoritur  clamorque  virum  clangorque  tubarum” 
he  does  it  as  follows : 

“ The  townsmen  roared,  the  trump  tara-tantara  rattled.” 

When  he  has  to  express  the  Cyclops  forging  the  thun- 
derbolts, it  is, 

“ With  peale  meale  ramping,  with  thick  thwack  sturdily  thun- 
d’ring;” 

and  very  much  more  of  the  same  kind. 

The  Earl  of  Surrey  and  James  Harrington  tried  their 
hand  at  detached  portions,  and  although  the  quaint  con- 
ceits which  were  admired  in  their  day  have  little  charm 
for  the  modern  reader,  there  is  not  wanting,  especially 
in  the  former,  a spirit  and  vigor  in  which  some  of  those 
who  came  before  and  after  them  lamentably  failed. 
The  translations  by  Vicars  and  Ogilby,  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  seventeenth  century,  have  little  claim  to  be 
remembered  except  as  the  first  presentations  of  the 
whole  HSneid  in  an  English  poetical  dress.  In  dull  me- 
diocrity they  are  about  equal. 

In  1697,  Dryden,  at  the  age  of  sixty-six,  finished  and 
published  his  translation;  written,  as  he  pathetically 
says,  “ in  his  declining  years,  struggling  with  want,  and 
oppressed  with  sickness;”  yet,  whatever  be  its  short- 
comings, a confessedly  great  work,  and  showing  few 
traces  of  these  unfavorable  circumstances.  His  great 
renown,  and  the  unquestionable  vigor  and  ability  of  the 
versification,  insured  its  popularity  at  once;  and  it  was 
considered,  by  the  critics  of  his  own  and  some  succeed- 
ing generations,  as  pre-eminently  the  English  Virgil. 
Dr.  Johnson  said  of  it  that  “ it  satisfied  his  friends  and 


10 


VIRGIL. 


silenced  liis  enemies.”  It  may  still  be  read  with  pleas- 
ure, but  it  has  grave  faults.  Independently  of  its  gene- 
ral looseness  and  diffuseness,  in  many  passages  amount- 
ing to  the  vaguest  paraphrase,  there  are  too  many  in- 
stances in  which,  not  content  with  making  his  author 
say  a good  many  things  which  he  never  did  say,  he  pal 
pably  misinterprets  him.  There  are  many  passages  of 
much  vigor  and  beauty ; but  even  of  these  it  has  been 
said,  and  not  unfairly,  by  a later  translator,  Dr.  Trapp, 
that  ‘‘where  you  most  admire  Dryden,  you  see  the  least 
of  Virgil.”  Dryden  had  the  advantage  of  consulting  in 
manuscript  a translation  by  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale  (af- 
terwards published),  which  has  considerable  merit,  and 
to  which  in  his  preface  lie  confesses  obligations  “not 
inconsiderable.”  They  were,  in  fact,  so  considerable  as 
this,  that  besides  other  hints  in  the  matter  of  words  and 
phrases,  he  borrowed  nearly  four  hundred  lines  in  dif- 
ferent places,  with  scarcely  an  attempt  at  change. 

Dryden  was  followed  by  various  other  translators 
more  or  less  successful.  Pitt  and  Symmons,  the  latter 
especialty,  might  have  earned  a greater  reputation  had 
they  preceded  instead  of  followed  the  great  poet  whose 
laurels  they  plainly  challenged  by  adopting  his  metre. 
But  the  recent  admirable  translation  of  the  iEneid  into 
the  metre  of  Scott  by  Mr.  Conington  will  undoubtedly 
take  its  place  henceforward  as  by  far  the  most  poetical, 
as  it  is  also  the  most  faithful  and  scholarly,  rendering 
of  the  original. 


VIRGIL 


THE  POET. 

Publius  Virgilius  Maro — such  was  his  full  name, 
though  we  have  abbreviated  the  sounding  Roman 
appellatives  into  the  curt  English  form  of  “ Virgil” — 
lived  in  the  age  when  the  great  Roman  Empire  was 
culminating  to  its  fall,  but  as  yet  showed  little  symp- 
tom  of  decay.  The  emperor  under  whom  he  was  born 
was  that  Octavianus  Caesar,  nephew  of  the  great  Julius, 
whose  title  of  “Augustus”  gave  a name  to  his  own 
times  which  has  since  passed  into  a common  term  for 
the  golden  age  of  literature  in  every  nation.  In  the 
Augustan  age  of  Rome  rose  and  flourished,  in  rapid 
succession,  a large  proportion  of  those  great  writers  to 
whose  works  we  have  given  the  name  of  classics.  This 
brilliant  summer-time  of  literature  was  owing  to  vari- 
ous causes — to  the  increase  of  cultivation  and  refine- 
ment, to  the  leisure  and  quiet  which  followed  after 
long  years  of  war  and  civil  commotion;  but  in  part 
also  it  was  owing  to  the  character  of  the  Roman 
emperor  himself.  Both  Augustus  and  his  intimate 
friend  and  counsellor  Maecenas  were  the  professed 
patrons  of  letters  and  of  the  fine  arts.  Maecenas  was 
of  the  highest  patrician  blood  of  Rome.  He  claimed 
descent  from  the  old  Etruscan  kings  or  Lucumos — 
those  ancient  territorial  chiefs  who  ruled  Italy  while 


12 


VIRGIL . 


Rome  was  yet  in  her  infancy,  such  as  Lars  Porsena  of 
Clusium.  Clever  and  accomplished,  an  able  statesman 
in  spite  of  all  his  indolence,  Maecenas  had  immense 
influence  with  Augustus.  At  his  splendid  palace  on 
the  Esquiline  Hill — the  Holland  House  of  the  day — 
met  all  the  brilliant  society  of  Rome,  and  his  name 
very  soon  became  a synonym  for  a liberal  patron  of 
art  and  literature.  To  be  eminent  in  any  branch  of 
these  accomplishments  was  to  insure  the  notice  of  the 
minister;  and  to  be  a protege  of  his  was  an  introduction 
at  once,  under  the  happiest  auspices,  to  the  emperor 
himself.  Such  good  fortune  occurred  to  Virgil  early 
in  his  life. 

He  was  born  in  the  little  village  of  Andes  (probably 
the  modern  Pietola),  near  Mantua,  and  received  a libe- 
ral education,  as  is  sufficiently  evident  from  the  many 
allusions  in  his  poems.  When  grown  to  manhood,  he 
seems  to  have  lived  for  some  years  with  his  father  upon 
his  modest  family  estate.  He  suffered,  like  very  many 
of  his  countrymen — his  friend  and  fellow-poet  Horace 
among  the  number — from  the  results  of  the  great  civil 
wars  which  so  long  desolated  Italy,  and  which  ended  in 
the  fall  of  the  Republic  at  the  battle  of  Philippi.  The 
district  near  Mantua  was  assigned  and  parcelled  out 
among  the  legionaries  who  had  fought  for  Antony  and 
young  Octavianus  against  Pompey.  Cremona  had  es- 
poused the  cause  of  the  latter,  and  Mantua,  as  Virgil 
himself  tells  us,  suffered  for  the  sins  of  its  neighbor. 
His  little  estate  was  confiscated,  amongst  others,  to  re- 
ward the  veterans  who  had  claims  on  the  gratitude  of 
Octavianus.  But  through  the  intercession  of  some  pow- 
erful friend  who  had  influence  with  the  young  emperor 
— probably  Asinius  Pollio,  hereafter  mentioned,  who 
was  prefect  of  the  province — they  were  soon  restored  to 


THE  POET. 


13 


him.  This  obligation  Yirgil  never  forgot;  and  amongst 
the  many  of  all  ranks  who  poured  their  flattery  into  the 
ears  of  Augustus  (as  Octavianus  must  be  henceforth 
called),  perhaps  that  of  the  young  Mantuan  poet,  though 
bestowed  with  something  of  a poet’s  exaggeration,  was 
amongst  the  most  sincere.  The  first  of  his  Pastorals 
was  written  to  express  his  gratitude  for  the  indulgence 
which  had  been  granted  him.  If  the  Caesar  of  the  day 
was  susceptible  of  flattery,  at  least  he  liked  it  good  of 
its  kind.  “ Stroke  him  awkwardly,” said  Horace,  “and 
he  winces  like  a restive  horse.”  But  the  verse  of  the 
Mantuan  poet  had  the  ring  of  poetry  as  wrell  as  com- 
pliment. 

These  Pastorals  (to  be  more  particularly  noticed  here- 
after) were  his  earliest  work,  composed,  probably,  be- 
tween his  twenty-seventh  and  thirty-fourth  year,  while 
he  was  still  living  a country  life  on  his  newly  recovered 
farm.  They  seem  to  have  attracted  the  favorable  atten- 
tion of  Maecenas;  and  soon,  among  the  brilliant  crowd 
of  courtiers,  statesmen,  artists,  poets,  and  historians  who 
thronged  the  audience-chamber  of  the  popular  minister, 
might  be  seen  the  tall,  slouching,  somewhat  plebeian 
figure  of  the  young  country  poet.*  He  soon  became  a 
familiar  guest  there;  but  although  Augustus  himself, 
half  in  jest,  was  said  to  have  spoken  of  his  minister’s 
literary  dinners  as  a “table  of  parasites,”  it  is  certain 
Yirgil  never  deserved  the  character.  This  intimacy 
with  Maecenas  must  have  led  to  frequent  and  prolonged 
visits  to  Rome;  but  bis  chief  residence,  after  he  left  his 
Mantuan  estate,  seems  to  have  been  at  Naples.  It  was 

* It  has  been  thought  that  the  friend  of  whom  Horace  speaks 
(Sat.  I.  3,  31),  under  whose  somewhat  slovenly  dress  and  rustic 
bearing  lay  hid  so  much  talent  and  worth,  may  have  been 
Virgil. 


14 


VIRGIL. 


at  the  suggestion  of  this  patron  that  he  set  about  the 
composition  of  his  poem  upon  Roman  agriculture  and 
stock-breeding — the  four  books  of  Georgies.  His  greatest 
and  best-known  work — the  iEneid — was  begun  in  obe^ 
dience  to  a hint  thrown  out  by  a still  higher  authority, 
though  he  seems  to  have  long  had  the  subject  in  his 
thoughts,  and  probably  had  begun  to  put  it  into  shape. 
Augustus  had  condescended  to  ask  the  poet  to  under- 
take some  grander  theme  than  an  imaginary  pastoral 
life  or  the  management  of  the  country  farm.  The  result 
was  the  iEneid,  modelled  upon  the  two  great  poems  of 
Homer — in  fact,  a Roman  Iliad  and  Odyssey  combined 
in  one.  It  was  never  completely  finished,  for  Yirgil, 
whose  health  was  at  no  time  robust,  died  before  he  had 
put  in  the  finishing  touches  which  his  fastidious  taste  re- 
quired. It  is  even  said  that  in  his  last  illness  he  would 
have  burnt  the  copy,  if  his  friends  would  have  allowed 
the  sacrifice.  It  is  hardly  probable,  as  a German  scholar 
has  ingeniously  suggested,  that  it  was  because  the  cruci 
ties  of  Augustus’s  later  years  made  him  repent  of  havin 
immortalized  a tyrant.  He  died  in  his  fifty-first  year, 
at  Brundusium,  wdiere  he  had  landed  in  the  suite  of  the 
emperor,  whom  he  had  met  during  a visit  to  Athens, 
and  who  brought  him  back  with  him  to  Italy.  He  was 
buried,  as  Aas  the  custom  of  the  Romans,  by  the  side 
of  the  public  road  leading  out  of  Naples  to  Puteoli;  and 
the  tomb  still  shown  to  travellers,  near  Posilippo,  as  the 
last  resting-place  of  the  poet,  may  at  least  mark  the  real 
site.  He  died  a comparatively  rich  man,  possessed  of 
a town-house  at  Rome,  near  the  palace  of  Maecenas,  with 
a good  library.  Living,  as  he  did,  in  the  highest  society 
of  the  capital,  wThere  he  was  very  popular,  he  never  for- 
got his  old  friends;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  read  that  he 
sent  money  to  his  aged  parents  regularly  every  year. 


THE  PASTORALS. 


15 


So  highly  was  he  esteemed  by  his  own  cotemporaries, 
that  on  one  occasion  when  he  visited  the  theatre,  the 
whole  audience  is  said  to  have  risen  in  a body  and  sa- 
luted him  with  the  same  honors  which  were  paid  to 
Augustus.  He  preserved  to  the  last  his  simple  manners 
and  somewhat  rustic  appearance;  and  it  is  believed  that 
his  character,  amongst  all  the  prevalent  vices  of  Rome, 
remained  free  from  reproach — saving  only  that  with 
which  lie  was  taunted  by  the  libertines  of  the  capital, 
the  reproach  of  personal  purity.  It  is  as  much  to  his 
honor  that  Caligula  should  have  ordered  all  his  busts  to 
be  banished  from  the  public  libraries,  as  that  St.  Augus- 
tine should  have  quoted  him  alone  of  heathen  authors, 
in  his  celebrated  “Confessions.” 


THE  PASTORALS. 

The  earliest  written  poems  of  Virgil,  as  has  been 
said,  were  his  Pastorals.  Of  these  we  have  ten  remain- 
ing, sometimes  called  “Bucolics” — i.e.y  Songs  of  the 
Herdsmen — and  sometimes  “Eclogues,”  as  being  “se- 
lections” from  a larger  number  of  similar  compositions 
which  the  poet  either  never  made  public,  or  which  at 
least  are  lost  to  us.  The  actual  subjects  of  these  poems 
are  various,  but  they  are  usually  introduced  in  the 
way  of  imaginary  dialogue  between  Greek  shepherds, 
keeping  their  flocks  and  herds  at  pasture  in  some  ima- 
ginary woodland  country,  which  the  poet  peoples  with 
inhabitants  and  supplies  with  scenery  at  his  will;  mix- 
ing up,  as  poets  only  may,  the  features  of  his  own 
Italian  landscape  with  those  of  Sicily,  borrowed,  with 
much  besides,  from  the  Idylls  of  Theocritus,  and  with 


16 


VIRGIL. 


reminiscences  of  the  Greek  Arcadia.  That  pastoral 
faery-land,  in  which  shepherds  lay  all  day  under  beech- 
trees,  playing  on  their  pipes,  either  in  rivalry  for  a 
musical  prize  or  composing  monodies  on  their  lost 
loves,  surely  never  existed  in  fact,  however  familiar  to 
us  in  the  language  of  ancient  and  modern  poets.  Such 
shepherds  are  as  unreal  as  the  satyrs  and  fauns  and 
dryad-nymphs  with  whom  a fanciful  mythology  had 
peopled  the  same  region,  and  who  are  not  unfrequently 
introduced  by  the  pastoral  poets  in  the  company  of 
their  human  dramatis  personae.  The  Arcadia  of  history 
was  a rich  and  fertile  district,  well  wooded  and  watered, 
and  as  prosaic  as  one  of  our  own  midland  counties.  Like 
them,  if  it  had  any  reputation  at  all  beyond  that  of 
being  excellent  pasture-ground,  it  was  a reputation  for 
dulness.  It  was  celebrated  for  its  breed  of  asses,  and 
some  of  the  qualities  of  the  animal  seem  to  have  been 
shared  by  the  natives  themselves.  “A  slip  of  Arcadia” 
passed  into  a proverbial  nickname  for  a boy  who  was 
the  despair  of  his  schoolmaster.  The  Arcadia  of  the 
poets  and  romance-writers,  from  classical  times  down  to 
our  own  Spenser  and  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  was,  as  Mr. 
Conington  says,  “the  poets’  golden  land,  in  which 
imagination  found  a refuge  from  the  harsh  prosaic  life 
of  the  present.”  This  literary  fancy  enjoyed  a remark- 
able popularity  from  the  early  days  of  authorship  down 
to  a very  recent  date.  Thyrsis  and  Amaryllis,  Daphnis 
and  Corydon,  have  had  a continued  poetical  existence 
of  something  like  fifteen  hundred  years,  and  talk  very 
much  the  same  language  in  the  Pastorals  of  Pope  that 
they  did  in  the  Greek  Idylls.  It  is  curious,  also,  that 
when  society  itself  has  been  most  artificial,  this  affecta- 
tion of  pastoral  simplicity  seems  to  have  been  most  in 
vogue.  It  was  the  effeminate  courtiers  of  Augustus 


THE  PASTORALS. 


17 


who  lavished  their  applause  and  rewards  upon  Virgil 
when  he  read  to  them  these  lays  of  an  imaginary 
shepherd-life;  how  Gaiatasa  was  wTon  by  a present  of  a 
pair  of  wood-pigeons  or  a basket  of  apples,  and  how 
Meliboeus  thankfully  went  to  supper  with  his  friend 
Tityrus  on  roasted  chestnuts  and  goat-milk  cheese. 
Society  in  England  had  never  less  of  the  reality  of 
pastoral  simplicity  than  in  the  days  when  nearly  every 
fine  lady  chose  to  be  painted  with  a lamb  or  a crook — 
when  the ‘‘bucolic  cant,”  as  Warton  contemptuously 
terms  it,  was  the  fashionable  folly  of  the  day.  So  when 
aristocratic  life  in  France  had  reached  a phase  of  cor- 
ruption which  was  only  to  be  purged  by  a revolution. 
Queen  Marie  Antoinette,  with  her  ladies  and  gentlemen 
in  waiting,  were  going  about  the  farm  at  Trianon  with 
crooks  in  their  hands,  playing  at  shepherds  and  shep- 
herdesses, on  the  brink  of  that  terrible  volcano. 

Of  the  ten  Eclogues,  the  majority  take  the  form  of 
pastoral  dialogue.  Frequently  it  is  a singing-match 
between  two  rival  shepherds — not  always  conducted  in 
the  most  amicable  fashion,  or  with  the  most  scrupulous 
delicacy  in  the  matter  of  repartee,  the  poetical  “Arca- 
dian” being  in  this  point  a pretty  faithful  copy  from 
nature.  Most  of  the  names,  as  well  as  of  the  subjects 
and  imagery,  are  taken,  as  has  been  said,  from  the 
Greek  Idylls  of  Theocritus.  So  closely  has  Virgil 
copied  his  model  that  he  even  transplants  the  natural 
scenery  of  Sicily,  employed  by  Theocritus,  to  his 
pastoral  dreamland,  which  otherwise  would  seem  to  be 
localized  on  the  banks  of  the  Mincio,  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  his  native  Mantua.  This  gives  him  an  oppor- 
tunity of  touching  upon  subjects  of  the  day,  and  intro- 
ducing, in  the  name  and  guise  of  shepherds,  himself 
and  his  friends.  Sometimes  we  can  see  through  the 


18 


VIRGIL. 


disguise  by  the  help  of  contemporary  Roman  history; 
more  often,  probably,  the  clue  is  lost  to  us  through  our 
very  imperfect  modern  knowledge.  We  know  pretty 
well  that  Tityrus — who  in  the  First  Eclogue  expresses 
his  gratitude  to  the  “godlike  youth”  who  has  pre- 
served his  little  farm  from  the  ruthless  hands  of  the 
soldier  colonists,  while  his  poor  neighbor  Meliboeus  has 
lost  his  all — can  be  no  other  than  the  poet  himself,  who 
thus  compliments  his  powerful  protector.  So,  too,  in  a 
later  Eclogue,  when  the  slave  Mceris  meets  his  neighbor 
Lycidas  on  the  road,  and  tells  him  how  his  master  has 
been  dispossessed  of  his  farm  by  the  military  colonists, 
and  has  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life,  we  may  safely 
trust  the  traditional  explanation,  that  in  the  master 
Menalcas  we  have  Virgil  again,  troubled  a second  time 
by  these  intruders,  and  compelled  to  renew  his  applica- 
tion to  his  great  friend  at  Rome.  The  traditional  story 
was,  that  the  poet  was  obliged  to  take  refuge  from  the 
violence  of  the  soldiers  in  the  shop  of  a charcoal- 
burner,  who  let  him  out  at  a back-door,  and  eventually 
had  to  throw  himself  into  the  river  Mincio  to  escape 
tlieir  pursuit.  Lycidas,  in  the  Pastoral,  is  surprised  to 
hear  of  his  neighbor’s  new  trouble. 

“ Lyc.— I surely  heard,  that  all  from  where  yon  hills 
Begin  to  rise,  and  gently  slope  again 
Down  to  the  stream,  where  the  old  beech-trees  throw 
Their  ragged  time-worn  tops  against  the  sky,* 

Your  poet-master  had  redeemed  by  song. 

Mcer.— You  heard,  no  doubt— and  so  the  story  went; 

But  song,  good  Lycidas,  avails  as  much, 


* It  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that  in  the  old  time-worn  beeches 
overhanging  the  stream  we  have  the  actual  landscape  of  the 
poet’s  farm. 


THE  PASTORALS. 


19 


When  swords  are  drawn,  as  might  the  trembling  dove 
When  on  Dodona  swoops  the  eagle  down. 

Nay— had  I not  been  warned  of  woes  to  come— 

Warned  by  a raven’s  croak  on  my  left  hand 
From  out  the  hollow  oak— why  then,  my  friend, 

You  had  lost  your  Moeris  and  his  master  too.” 

Honest  Lycidas  expresses  his  horror  at  the  narrow 
escape  of  the  neighborhood  from  such  a catastrophe. 
What  should  they  all  have  done  for  a poet,  if  they  had 
lost  Menalcas?  who  could  compose  such  songs — and 
who  could  sing  them?  And  he  breaks  out  himself  into 
fragmentary  reminiscences  which  he  lias  picked  up  by 
ear  from  his  friend.  Then  Moeris  too — who,  being  a 
poet’s  farm-servant,  has  caught  a little  of  the  inspira- 
tion— repeats  a few  lines  of  his  master’s.  “ As  you 
hope  for  any  blessings,”  says  Lycidas,  “ let  me  hear  the 
rest  of  it.” 

“ So  may  your  bees  avoid  the  poisonous  yew— 

So  may  your  cows  bring  full-swoln  udders  home — 

If  canst  remember  aught,  begin  at  once.  I too, 

I am  a poet,  by  the  Muses’  grace:  some  songs 
I have,  mine  own  composing  ; and  the  swains 
Call  me  their  bard — but  I were  weak  to  heed  them. 

I cannot  vie  with  masters  of  the  art 
Like  Yarius  or  like  Cinna;  my  poor  Muse 
Is  but  a goose  among  the  tuneful  swans. M 

Mceris  can  remember  a scrap  or  two  of  his  master’s 
verses.  There  was  one  in  particular,  which  Lycidas 
had  heard  him  singing  one  moonlight  night,  and  would 
much  like  to  hear  again — “I  can  remember  the  tune 
myself,”  he  says,  “but  I have  forgotten  the  words.” 
Moeris  will  try.  The  compliment  to  Augustus  with 
which  the  strain  begins  sufficiently  marks  the  real  poet 
who  here  figures  as  Menalcas. 


20 


VIRGIL . 


“ Why,  Daphnis,  why  dost  watch  the  constellations 
Of  the  old  order,  now  the  new  is  born? 

Lo ! a new  star  comes  forth  to  glad  the  nations, 

Star  of  the  Caesars,  filling  full  the  corn.”  * 

But  Mooris  cannot  remember  much  more.  They  must 
both  wait,  he  says,  until  his  master  comes  home  again. 
So  the  pair  walk  on  together  towards  Rome,  cheating 
the  long  journey  with  singing  as  they  go;  and  thus 
closes  this  pretty  pastoral  dialogue,  the  graceful  ease 
of  which,  with  its  subdued  comedy,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  any  translator  to  render  adequately. 

Another  of  these  Eclogues  relates  the  capture  of 
Silenus,  one  of  the  old  rural  deities  of  very  jovial  re- 
putation, by  two  young  shepherds,  while  he  lay  sleep- 
ing off  the  effect  of  yesterday’s  debauch.  He  is  com- 
monly represented — and  he  was  rather  a favorite  sub- 
ject with  ancient  artists — as  a corpulent  bald-headed 
old  man,  riding  upon  an  ass,  in  a state  of  evident  in- 
ebriety, carrying  a capacious  leather  wTine-bottle,  and 
led  and  followed  by  a company  of  Nymphs  and  Bac- 
chanals. He  had  the  reputation,  like  the  sea -god 
Proteus,  of  knowing  the  mysteries  of  nature  and  the 
secrets  of  the  future;  and  there  was  a current  story, 
upon  which  this  Pastoral  is  founded,  of  his  having 
been  caught  while  asleep,  like  him,  b}^  some  shepherds 
in  Phrygia,  and  carried  to  King  Midas,  to  wTliom,  as 
the  price  of  his  release,  he  answered  all  questions  in 
natural  philosophy  and  ancient  history — just  as  Proteus 


* Probably  the  comet  which  appeared  after  Julius  Caesar’s 
death,  and  which  the  poet  takes  to  announce  a new  era  of  peace 
and  happiness  for  Rome.  The  English  reader  may  remember 
that  a new  star  was  said  to  have  appeared  at  the  accession  of 
Charles  II.,  from  which  equally  happy  auguries  were  drawn— 
and  were  equally  disappointed. 


THE  PASTORALS. 


21 


unfolded  to  Menelaus,  under  similar  compulsion,  the 
secret  of  liis  future  fate. 

The  Pastoral  into  which  Virgil  introduces  this  story 
is  addressed  to  his  friend  Varus — a man  evidently  of 
high  rank — and  seems  meant  as  an  apology  for  not 
complying  with  his  request  to  write  a poem  on  his 
exploits. 

“ I thought  to  sing  how  heroes  fought  and  bled, 

But  that  Apollo  pinched  my  ear,  and  said — 

4 Shepherds,  friend  Tityrus,  I would  have  you  know, 

Feed  their  sheep  high,  and  keep  their  verses  low.’  ” 

Then  he  goes  on  to  tell  his  story : 

44  Two  shepherd-youths,  the  story  runs,  one  day 
Came  on  the  cave  where  old  Silenus  lay; 

Filled  to  the  skin,  as  was  his  wont  to  be, 

With  last  night’s  wine,  and  sound  asleep  was  he; 

The  garland  from  his  head  had  fallen  aside, 

And  his  round  bottle  hanging  near  they  spied. 

Now  was  their  time— both  had  been  cheated  long 
By  the  sly  god  with  promise  of  a song; 

They  tied  him  fast— fit  bonds  his  garland  made — 

And  lo ! a fair  accomplice  comes  to  aid : 

Loveliest  of  Naiad-nymphs,  and  merriest  too, 
iEgl§*  did  what  they  scarce  had  dared  to  do; 

J ust  as  the  god  unclosed  his  sleepy  eyes, 

She  daubed  his  face  with  blood  of  mulberries. 

He  saw  their  joke,  and  laughed— 4 Now  loose  me,  lad! 
Enough — you’ve  caught  me— tying  is  too  bad. 

A song  you  want?— Here  goes.  For  iEgle,  mind, 

I warrant  me  I’ll  pay  her  out  in  kind. 

So  he  began.  The  listening  Fauns  drew  near, 

The  beasts  beat  time,  the  stout  oaks  danced  to  hear. 

So  joys  Parnassus  when  Apollo  sings— 

So  through  the  dancing  hills  the  lyre  of  Orpheus  rings.” 

Silenus’s  straia  is  a poetical  lecture  on  natural  phi- 
losophy. He  is  as  didactic  in  his  waking  soberness  as 


* Anglice , “ Bright-eyes.” 


22 


VIRGIL. 


some  of  his  disciples  are  in  their  cups.  He  describes 
how  the  world  sprang  from  the  four  original  elements, 
and  narrates  the  old  fables  of  the  cosmogonists — the 
Deluge  of  Deucalion,  the  new  race  of  men  who  sprang 
from  the  stones  which  he  and  Pyrrlia  cast  behind  them, 
the  golden  reign  of  Saturn,  the  theft  of  fire  by  Prome- 
theus, and  a long  series  of  other  legends,  with  which 
he  charms  his  listeners  until  the  falling  shadows  warn 
them  to  count  their  flocks,  and  the  evening-star  comes 
out,  as  the  poet  phrases  it,  “ over  the  unwilling  heights 
of  Olympus” — loath  yet  to  lose  the  fascinating  strain. 

Besides  this  Pastoral  addressed  to  Varus,  there  are 
three  inscribed  to  other  friends:  one  to  Cornelius 
Gallus,  and  two  to  Caius  Asinius  Pollio,  who  was 
among  the  most  eminent  men  of  his  day  alike  as  a 
statesman,  an  orator,  and  a man  of  letters,  and  at  that 
time  held  the  high  office  of  consul  at  Pome.  He  had 
been  the  friend  of  the  great  Julius,  as  he  was  after- 
wards of  his  nephew  Octavianus  (Augustus),  and  was 
probably  the  person  who  preserved  or  restored  to  the 
poet  his  country  estate.  The  fourth  in  order  of  these 
poems,  commonly  known  as  the  “Pollio,”  is  the  most 
celebrated  of  the  whole  series,  and  has  given  rise  to  a 
great  amount  of  speculation.  Its  exact  date  is  known 
from  the  record  of  Pollio’s  consulship — 40  before  the 
Christian  era.  Its  subject  is  the  expected  birth  of  a 
Child,  in  whom  the  golden  age  of  innocence  and  happi- 
ness should  be  restored,  and  who  was  to  be  the  moral 
regenerator  of  the  world.  The  date  of  the  poem  itself, 
approaching  so  closely  the  great  Birth  at  Bethlehem — 
the  reference  to  the  prophecy  of  the  Cumaean  Sibyl, 
long  supposed  to  be  a voice  from  heathendom  pre- 
dictive of  the  Jewish  Messiah — and  the  remarkable 
coincidence  of  the  metaphorical  terms  employed  by 


THE  PASTORALS. 


23 


the  poet  with  the  prophetical  language  of  the  Old 
Testament,  have  led  many  to  the  pious  belief  that  the 
Roman  poet  did  but  put  into  shape  those  vague  ex- 
pectations of  a Great  Deliverer  which  were  current  in 
his  day,  and  which  were  to  have  a higher  fulfilment 
than  he  knew.  The  “ Pollio”  may  be  familiar  to  many 
English  readers  who  are  unacquainted  with  the  origi- 
nal through  Pope’s  fine  imitation  of  it  in  his  poem  of 
“The  Messiah,”  first  published  anonymously  in  the 
“Spectator.”*  But  as  the  Latin  Eclogue  itself  is 
short,  it  may  be  well  to  attempt  a translation  of  it 
here,  before  remarking  further  upon  its  meaning. 

“ Muses  of  Sicily,  lift  me  for  once 
To  higher  flight ; our  humble  tamarisk  groves 
Delight  not  all ; and  though  the  fields  and  woods 
Still  bound  my  song,  give  me  the  skill  to  make 
Fit  music  for  a Roman  cousul’s  ear. 

“ Comes  the  Last  Age,  of  which  the  Sibyl  sang— 

A new-born  cycle  of  the  rolling  years; 

Justice  returns  to  earth,  the  rule  returns 
Of  good  King  Saturn lo ! from  the  high  heavens 
Comes  a new  seed  of  men.  Lucina  chaste, 

Speed  the  fair  infant’s  birth,  with  whom  shall  end 
Our  age  of  iron,  and  the  golden  prime 
Of  earth  return ; thine  own  Apollo’s  reign 
In  him  begins  anew.  This  glorious  age 
Inaugurates,  O Pollio,  with  thee; 

Thy  consulship  shall  date  the  happy  months; 

Under  thine  auspices  the  Child  shall  purge 

Our  guilt-stains  out,  and  free  the  land  from  dread. 

He  with  the  gods  and  heroes  like  the  gods 
Shall  hold  familiar  converse,  and  shall  rule 
With  his  great  father’s  spirit  the  peaceful  world. 

For  thee,  O Child,  the  earth  unfilled  shall  pour 
Her  early  gifts,— the  winding  ivy’s  wreath, 

Smiling  acanthus,  and  all  flowers  that  blow. 


No.  378. 


24 


VIRGIL . 


She-goats  undriven  shall  bring  full  udders  home, 

The  herds  no  longer  fear  the  lion’s  spring; 

The  ground  beneath  shall  cradle  thee  in  flowers, 

The  venomed  snake  shall  die,  the  poisonous  herb 
Perish  from  out  thy  path,  and  leave  the  almond  there. 

“ But  when  with  growing  years  the  Child  shall  learn 
The  old  heroic  glories  of  his  race, 

And  know  what  Honor  means:  then  shall  the  plains 
Glow  with  the  yellow  harvest  silently, 

The  grape  hang  blushing  from  the  tangled  brier, 

And  the  rough  oak  drip  honey  like  a dew. 

Yet  shall  some  evil  leaven  of  ti  e old  strain 
Lurk  still  unpurged;  still  men  shall  tempt  the  deep 
With  restless  oar,  gird  cities  with  new  walls, 

And  cleave  the  soil  with  ploughshares;  yet  again 
Another  Argo  bear  her  hero-crew, 

Another  Tiphys  steer:  still  wars  shall  be, 

A new  Achilles  for  a second  Troy. 

“ So,  when  the  years  shall  seal  thy  manhood's  strength, 
The  busy  merchant  shall  forsake  the  seas — 

Barter  there  shall  not  need ; the  soil  shall  bear 
For  all  men’s  use  all  products  of  all  climes. 

The  glebe  shall  need  no  harrow,  nor  the  vine 
The  searching  knife,  the  oxen  bear  no  yoke; 

The  wool  no  longer  shall  be  schooled  to  lie, 

Dyed  in  false  hues ; but,  coloring  as  he  feeds, 

The  ram  himself  in  the  rich  pasture  lands 
Shall  wear  a fleece  now  purple  and  now  gold, 

And  the  lambs  grow  in  scarlet.  So  the  Fates 
Who  know  not  change  have  bid  their  spindles  run, 

And  weave  for  this  blest  age  the  web  of  doom. 

“ Come,  claim  thine  honors,  for  the  time  draws  nigh, 
Babe  of  immortal  race,  the  wondrous  seed  of  Jovei 
Lo,  at  thy  coming  how  the  starry  spheres 
Are  moved  to  trembling,  and  the  earth  below, 

And  widespread  seas,  and  the  blue  vault  of  heaven! 

How  all  things  joy  to  greet  the  rising  Age! 

If  but  my  span  of  life  be  stretched  to  see 
Thy  birth,  and  breath  remain  to  sing  thy  praise, 

Not  Thracian  Orpheus  should  o’ermatch  my  strain, 

Nor  Linus,— though  each  parent  helped  the  son, 

Phcebus  Apollo  and  the  Muse  of  Song: 


TEE  PASTORALS. 


25 


Though  in  Arcadia  Pan  my  rival  stood, 

His  own  Arcadia  should  pronounce  for  me. 

How  soon,  fair  infant,  shall  thy  first  smile  greet 
Thy  happy  mother,  when  the  slow  months  crown 
The  heart-sick  hopes  that  waited  for  thy  birth? 

Smile  then,  O Babe!  so  shall  she  smile  on  thee; 

The  child  on  whom  no  parent’s  smile  hath  beamed. 

No  god  shall  entertain,  nor  goddess  love.” 

It  would  be  out  of  place  here  to  discuss  the  various 
conjectures  of  the  learned  as  to  who  the  Child  was,  to 
whose  birth  the  poet  thus  looks  forward.  Whether  it 
was  a son  of  the  Consul  Pollio  himself,  who  died  in 
his  infancy;  or  the  expected  offspring  of  Augustus’s 
marriage  with  Scribonia,  which  was,  after  all,  a daugh- 
ter— Julia — whose  profligate  life  and  unhappy  death 
were  a sad  contradiction  of  Virgil’s  anticipations;  ora 
child  of  Octavia,  sister  of  Augustus; — which  of  these 
it  was,  or  whether  it  was  any  one  of  them,  neither 
ancient  nor  modern  commentators  have  been  able  to 
decide.  “ It  is  not  certain,”  says  Mr.  Conington,  “ that 
the  child  ever  was  born;  it  is  certain  that,  if  born,  he 
did  not  become  the  regenerator  of  his  time.”  It  is 
possible,  too,  that  the  whole  form  of  the  poem  may 
be  strictly  imaginary — that  the  child  had  been  bom 
already,  long  ago,  and  that  it  was  no  other  than 
Octavianus  Ctesar — and  that  Virgil  does  but  use  here 
the  license  of  poetry  to  express  his  hopes  of  a golden 
age  that  might  follow  the  peace  of  Brundusium.  And 
as  to  how  far  this  very  remarkable  poem  may  or  may 
not  be  regarded  as  one  of  what  Archbishop  Trench 
has  called  “the  unconscious  prophecies  of  heathen- 
dom,” would  be  to  open  a field  of  inquiry  of  the 
highest  interest  indeed,  but  far  too  wide  for  these 
pages.  Yet  it  cannot  be  entirely  passed  over. 

The  Sibylline  oracles,  to  which  Virgil  alludes  in  his 


26 


VIRGIL. 


opening  lines,  whatever  their  original  form,  were  so 
garbled  and  interpolated,  both  in  Christian  and  pre- 
Cliristian  times,  that  it  is  impossible  now  to  know 
what  they  did  or  did  not  contain.  But  they  were 
recognized,  in  the  early  Church — by  the  Emperor 
Constantine,  who  is  said  to  have  attributed  his  own 
conversion  in  great  part  to  their  study,  and  by  St. 
Augustine,  amongst  others — as  containing  distinct 
prophecies  of  the  Messiah.  The  recognition  of  the 
Roman  Sibyl  or  Sibyls  as  bearing  their  testimony  to 
the  truth  of  Christianity  is  still  familiar  to  us  in  the 
ancient  hymn,  “Dieslrse,” — so  often  translated — 

“Teste  David  cum  Sibylla;” 

and  in  an  old  Latin  mystery-play  of  the  eleventh 
century,  when  the  witnesses  are  summoned  to  give 
evidence  as  to  the  Nativity,  there  appear  among  them, 
in  company  with  the  Hebrew  prophets,  Virgil  and 
the  Sibyl,  who  both  join  in  a general  “ Benedicamus 
Domino ” at  the  end.  St.  Augustine  quotes  twenty- 
seven  Latin  verses  (which,  however,  seem  very  frag- 
mentary and  unconnected)  as  actual  utterances  of  the 
Sibyl  of  Erytlirse,  which  contain  prophecies,  more  or 
less  clear,  of  the  great  Advent.  The  original,  he  says, 
was  in  Greek,  and  the  initial  letters  of  each  verse 
formed  a sentence,  “Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of  God  the 
Saviour.  ”*  Whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  any 
special  predictions  of  this  nature  as  existing  in  the 
heathen  world,  it  is  at  least  certain  that  there  pre- 
vailed very  largety,  about  the  date  of  the  Christian  era, 


* IH20Y2  XPEI2T02  0EOY  YI02  20THP*  He  also  quotes 
other  “Sibylline”  verses  from  the  Greek  of  Lactantius,  refer- 
ring to  the  crucifixion. — De  Civ.  Dei,  xviii.  23. 


THE  PASTORALS. 


27 


a vague  expectation  of  some  personal  advent  which 
should  in  some  way  regenerate  society. 

The  new  “cycle  of  centuries,”  which  the  poet  sup- 
poses to  begin  with  the  birth  of  the  Child,  refers  to 
the  doctrine  held  by  Plato  and  his  disciples  (possibly 
of  Etruscan  origin)  of  an  “Annus  Magnus,”  or  Great 
Year.  It  was  believed  that  there  were  certain  recur- 
ring periods  at  long  intervals,  in  which  the  history  of 
the  world  repeated  itself.*  A curious  story  in  illus- 
tration of  this  belief  is  told  by  Plutarch  in  his  life  of 
Sulla. 

“While  the  horizon  was  clear  and  cloudless,  there  was 
heard  suddenly  the  sound  of  a trumpet,  shrill,  prolonged,  and 
as  it  were  wailing,  so  that  all  men  were  startled  and  awed  by 
its  loudness.  The  Etruscan  soothsayers  declared  that  it  fore- 
boded the  coming  of  a new  generation  and  the  revolution  of 
the  world.  For  that  there  were  eight  generations  of  man  in 
all,  differing  from  each  other  in  habits  and  ways  of  life,  and 
each  had  its  allotted  space  of  time,  when  heaven  brought  round 
again  the  recurrence  of  the  Great  Year,  and  that  when  the  end 
of  one  and  the  rise  of  another  was  at  hand,  some  wondrous 
sign  appeared  in  earth  or  heaven.'”— Plutarch,  Sulla,  c.  7. 

Enough  lias  perhaps  been  said  to  give  some  idea  of 
the  genius  and  character  of  Virgil’s  pastoral  poetry. 
It  laid  the  foundation  of  a taste  which  was  long  preva- 
lent in  European  literature,  but  which  may  be  said 
to  have  now  become  obsolete.  English  poets  were  at 
one  time  strongly  imbued  with  it.  Spenser,  Milton, 
Drayton,  Pope,  and  Ambrose  Phillips, — the  last  per- 
haps the  most  successful, — were  all  more  or  less 
imitators  of  Virgil  in  this  line  of  poetry.  But  it 
would  seem  to  require  a more  than  ordinary  revolution 
in  literature  ever  to  bring  such  a style  into  popularity 
again. 


* The  duration  is  variously  estimated— from  2489  to  18,000 
years.  See  Conington’s  note. 


28 


VIROIL. 


THE  GEORGICS. 

The  Georgies  of  Virgil,  like  liis  Pastorals,  are  a 
direct  and  confessed  imitation  from  Greek  originals. 
The  poem  of  Hesiod — “Works  and  Days” — which 
has  come  down  to  us,  though  apparently  in  an  incom- 
plete form,  gives  a mythological  sketch  of  the  early 
history  of  the  world,  with  its  five  ages  of  the  human 
race — the  gold,  the  silver,  the  brazen,  “the  age  of 
heroes,”  and  the  present — which  last,  with  the  cyni- 
cism or  melancholy  which  seems  so  inseparable  from 
the  poetic  temperament,  Hesiod  looks  upon  as  hope- 
lessly degenerate,  with  the  prospect  of  something  even 
worse  to  come.  To  this  traditional  cosmogony  the 
Greek  poet  adds  directions  as  to  farm  operations  in 
their  several  seasons,  and  notes  of  lucky  and  unlucky 
days.  Yirgil  has  borrowed  from  him  largely  on  these 
two  latter  subjects.  He  is  also  considerably  indebted 
to  other  Greek  writers  less  known  to  us,  and  in  whose 
case,  therefore,  his  obligations  are  not  so  readily 
traced. 

From  his  own  countryman  and  immediate  prede- 
cessor, Lucretius,  the  author  of  the  great  didactic  poem 
“ On  the  Nature  of  Things.”  he  drew  quite  as  largely, 
but  in  another  field.  Yirgil  is  said  to  have  been  born 
on  the  very  day  of  Lucretius’s  death,  and  he  had  an 
intense  admiration  for  both  his  diction  and  his  philo- 
sophy. There  are  passages  in  Virgil's  writings  which 
would  seem  to  show  that  his  greatest  ambition  would 
have  been  to  have  sung,  like  Lucretius,  of  the  secrets 
of  nature,  rather  than  either  of  heroic  legends  or  of 
country  life.  And  here  and  there,  throughout  these 
books  of  Georgies,  wherever  he  lias  the  opportunity, 


THE  GEORGICS. . 


29 


lie  forgets  the  farmer  in  the  natural  philosopher,  and 
breaks  off  in  the  midst  of  some  practical  precepts  to 
indulge  in  speculations  on  the  hidden  causes  of  nature’s 
operations,  which  would  have  sorely  puzzled  a Roman 
country  gentleman  orchis  bailiff,  if  we  could  suppose 
that  the  work  was  really  composed  with  a view  to  their 
practical  instruction. 

He  addresses  his  poem  to  his  noble  patron  Maecenas. 
And  amongst  the  long  list  of  divine  powers  whom,  as 
the  guardians  of  fields  and  flocks,  he  invokes  to  aid  his 
song,  he  introduces  the  present  Autocrat  of  Rome. 


M Thou,  Csesar,  chief,  where’er  thy  choice  ordain, 

To  fix  'raid  gods  thy  yet  unchosen  reign — 

Wilt  thou  o’er  cities  stretch  thy  guardian  sway, 

While  earth  and  all  her  realms  thy  nod  obey? 

The  world’s  vast  orb  shall  own  thy  genial  power. 

Giver  of  fruits,  fair  sun,  and  favoring  shower; 

Before  thy  altar  grateful  nations  bow, 

And  with  maternal  myrtle  wreathe  thy  brow. 

O’er  boundless  ocean  shall  thy  power  prevail, 

Thee  her  sole  lord  the  world  of  waters  hail  ? 

Rule,  where  the  sea  remotest  Thule  laves, 

While  Tethys  dowers  thy  bride  with  all  her  waves? 
Wilt  thou  ’mid  Scorpius  and  the  Virgin  rise, 

And,  a new  star,  illume  thy  native  skies? 

Scorpius,  e’en  now,  each  shrinking  claw  confines, 

And  more  than  half  his  heaven  to  thee  resigns. 
Where’er  thy  reign  (for  not  if  hell  invite 
To  wield  the  sceptre  of  eternal  night, 

Ne’er  would  such  lust  of  dire  dominion  move 
Thee,  Csesar,  to  resign  the  realm  of  Jove: 

Though  vaunting  Greece  extol  th’  Elysian  plain, 
Whence  weeping  Ceres  wooes  her  child  in  vain) 
Breathe  favoring  gales,  my  course  propitious  guide, 
O’er  the  rude  swain’s  uncertain  path  preside; 

Now,  now  invoked,  assert  thy  heavenly  birth. 

And  learn  to  hear  our  prayers,  a god  on  earth.” 

— Sotheby. 


30 


VIRGIL. 


The  first  book  is  devoted  to  the  raising  of  corn  crops. 
The  farmer  is  recommended  to  plough  early,  to  plough 
deep,  and  to  plough  four  times  over — advice  in  the 
principles  of  which  modern  farmers  would  cordially 
agree.  The  poet  also  recommends  fallows  at  least  every 
other  season,  and  not  to  take  two  corn  crops  in  succes- 
sive years.  The  Roman  agriculturist  had  his  pests  of 
the  farm,  and  complained  of  them  as  loudly  as  his 
modern  fellows.  The  geese,  and  the  cranes,  and  the 
mice,  and  the  small  birds,  vexed  him  all  in  turn;  and 
if  he  knew  nothing  of  that  distinctly  English  torment, 
the  couch-grass, — squitch,  twitch,  or  quitch,  as  it  is 
variously  termed,  which  is  said  to  spring  up  under  the 
national  footstep  wherever  it  goes,  whether  at  the  Cape 
or  in  Australia, — he  had  indigenous  weeds  of  his  own 
which  gave  him  equal  trouble  to  get  rid  of.  The 
Roman  plough  seems  to  have  been  a cumbrous  wooden 
instrument,  which  would  break  the  heart  alike  of  man 
and  horse  in  these  days;  and  its  very  elaborate  de- 
scription, in  spite  of  the  polished  language  of  the  poet, 
would  shock  one  of  our  modern  implement-manufac- 
turers. He  gives  a few  hints  as  to  lucky  and  unlucky 
days,  and  fuller  directions  for  prognosticating  the 
weather  from  the  various  signs  to  be  observed  in  the 
sky,  and  in  the  behavior  of  the  animal  world;  and  he 
closes  this  first  division  of  his  poem,  as  he  began  it, 
with  an  apostrophe  to  Caesar  as  the  hope  of  Rome  and 
Italy.  It  is  one  of  the  finest  passages  in  the  Georgies, 
and  will  bear  translation  as  well  as  most.  Dryden’s 
version  is  spirited  enough,  and  though  diffuse,  presents 
the  sense  fairly  to  an  English  ear: 

“ Ye  home-born  deities,  of  mortal  birth  1 
Thou,  father  Romulus,  and  mother  Earth, 

Goddess  unmoved ! whose  guardian  arms  extend 
O’er  Tuscan  Tiber’s  course,  and  Roman  towers  defend; 


THE  GEOBGICS. 


31 


With  youthful  Caesar  your  joint  powers  engage, 

Nor  hinder  him  to  save  the  sinking  age. 

O ! let  the  blood  already  spilt  atone 
For  the  past  crimes  of  curst  Laomedon! 

Heaven  wants  thee  there;  and  long  the  gods,  we  know, 
Have  grudged  thee,  Caesar,  to  the  world  below ; 

Where  fraud  and  rapine  right  and  wrong  confound ; 

Where  impious  arms  from  every  part  resound, 

And  monstrous  crimes  in  every  shape  are  crowned. 

The  peaceful  peasant  to  the  wars  is  prest; 

The  fields  lie  fallow  in  inglorious  rest: 

The  plain  no  pasture  to  the  flock  affords, 

The  crooked  scythes  are  straightened  into  swords: 

And  there  Euphrates  her  soft  offspring  arms, 

And  here  the  Rhine  rebellows  with  alarms; 

The  neighboring  cities  range  on  several  sides, 

Perfidious  Mars  long-plighted  leagues  divides, 

And  o'er  the  wasted  world  in  triumph  rides. 

So  four  fierce  coursers,  starting  to  the  race, 

Scour  through  the  plain,  and  lengthen  every  pace: 

Nor  reins,  nor  curbs,  nor  threatening  cries  they  fear. 

But  force  along  the  trembling  charioteer.” 

The  Second  Georgic  treats  of  the  orchard  and  the 
vineyard,  but  especially  of  the  latter.  The  apple,  the 
pear,  the  olive,  all  receive  due  notice  from  the  poet; 
but  upon  the  culture  of  the  vine  he  dwells  with  a 
hearty  enthusiasm,  and  his  precepts  have  a more  prac- 
tical air  than  those  which  he  gives  out  upon  other 
branches  of  cultivation.  The  soil,  the  site,  the  best 
kinds  to  choose,  the  different  modes  of  propagation, 
are  all  discussed  with  considerable  minuteness.  It 
would  seem  that  in  those  earlier  times,  as  now,  the 
vintage  had  a more  poetical  aspect  than  even  the 
harvest-field.  The  beauty  of  the  crop,  the  merriment 
of  the  gatherers,  the  genial  effects  of  the  grape  when  it 
has  gone  through  the  usual  process  of  conversion,  gave, 
as  is  still  the  case  in  all  wine-producing  countries, 


32 


VIRGIL. 


a holiday  character  to  the  whole  course  of  cultivation. 
All  other  important  crops  contribute  in  some  way  to 
supply  the  actual  needs  of  life:  the  vine  alone  repre- 
sents distinctly  its  enjoyments.  And  when,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  book,  the  poet  invokes  the  god  of 
wine  to  inspire  his  song,  he  does  it  with  a thorough 
heartiness  of  welcome  which  assures  us  that,  however 
temperate  his  own  habits  might  be,  he  had  not 
adopted  any  vow  of  total  abstinence.  Some  of  the 
ancient  critics  are  said  to  have  detected  in  Homer  a 
taste  for  joviality,  because  in  his  verse  he  had  always 
a kindly  word  for  “ the  dark  red  wine:”  they  might 
have  said  the  same  of  the  writer  of  the  Georgies.  It  is 
a cordial  invitation  which  he  gives  to  the  jolly  god: 

“ Come,  Father  Bacchus,  come!  thy  bounty  fills 
All  things  around;  for  thee  the  autumn  hills, 

Heavy  with  fruit,  blush  through  their  greenery; 

In  the  full  vats  the  vintage  foams  for  thee: 

Come,  Father  Bacchus,  come ! nor  yet  refuse 
To  doff  thy  buskins,  and  with  noble  juice 
To  stain  thy  limbs,  and  tread  the  grapes  with  me.” 

But  although  the  poet  makes  the  labors  of  the  gardener 
and  the  vine-dresser  the  burden  of  his  song,  his  most 
brilliant  passages,  and  those  best  known  and  remem- 
bered, are  the  frequent  digressions  in  which  he  breaks 
away  from  the  lower  ground  of  horticultural  details 
into  a higher  poetical  atmosphere.  One  of  the  most 
beautiful  is  his  apostrophe  to  Italy  in  this  second  book: 

“ Colchian  bulls  with  fiery  nostrils  never  turned  Italian  field, 
Seed  of  hydra’s  teeth  ne’er  sprang  in  bristling  crop  of  spear  and 
shield ; 

But  thy  slopes  with  heavy  corn-stalks  and  the  Massic  vine  are 
clad, 

There  the  olive-groves  are  greenest,  and  the  full-fed  herds  are 
glad. 


THE  OEORGIGS. 


33 


In  thy  plains  is  bred  the  war-horse,  tossing  high  its  crest  of 
pride ; 

Milk-white  herds,  O fair  Clitumnus,  bathe  them  in  thy  sacred 
tide— 

Mighty  bulls  to  crown  the  altars,  or  to  draw  the  conqueror’s 
car 

Up  the  Sacred  Way  in  triumph  when  he  rideth  from  the  war. 

Here  the  spring  is  longest,  summer  borrows  months  beyond  her 
own; 

Twice  the  teeming  flocks  are  fruitful,  twice  the  laden  orchards 
groan. 

In  thy  plains  no  tigers  wander,  nor  the  lions  nurse  their  young; 

Evil  root  of  treacherous  poison  doth  no  wretched  gatherer 
wrong, 

Never  serpent  rears  its  crest,  or  drags  its  monstrous  coils  along. 

Lo ! where  rise  thy  noble  cities,  giant  works  of  men  of  old, 

Towns  on  beetling  crags  piled  heavenward  by  the  hands  of  build- 
ers bold— 

Antique  towers  round  whose  foundations  still  the  grand  old  rivers 
glide, 

And  the  double  sea  that  girds  thee  like  a fence  on  either  side. 

Such  the  land  which  sent  to  battle  Marsian  footmen  stout  and 
good, 

Sabine  youth,  and  Volscian  spearmen,  and  Liguria’s  hardy 
brood ; 

Hence  have  sprung  our  Decii,  Marii,  mighty  names  which  all 
men  bless, 

Great  Camillus,  kinsmen  Scipios,  sternest  men  in  battle’s  press! 

Hence  hast  thou  too  sprung,  great  Caesar,  whom  the  farthest 
East  doth  fear. 

So  that  Mede  nor  swarthy  Indian  to  our  Roman  lines  come  near! 

Hail,  thou  fair  and  fruitful  mother,  land  of  ancient  Saturn, 
hail! 

Rich  in  crops  and  rich  in  heroes ! thus  I dare  to  wake  the  tale 

Of  thine  ancient  laud  and  honor,  opening  founts  that  slumbered 
long, 

Rolling  through  our  Roman  towns  the  echoes  of  old  Hesiod’s 
song.”  * 


* This  fine  passage — much  of  the  beauty  of  which  is  necessa- 
rily lost  in  this  attempt  at  a translation— has  been  often  imitated. 


u 


VIRGIL. 


The  Third  Georgic  treats  of  the  herd  and  the  stud. 
The  poet's  knowledge  on  these  points  must  be  strongly 
suspected  of  being  but  second-hand — rather  the  result 
of  having  studied  some  of  the  Roman  “Books  of  the 
Farm,"  than  the  experience  of  a practical  stock-breeder. 
Such  a work  was  Varro’s  “ On  Rural  Affairs,"  which 
Virgil  evidently  followed  as  an  authority.  From  that 
source  he  drew,  amongst  other  precepts,  the  points  of 
a good  cow,  which  he  lays  down  in  this  formula: 

“ An  ugly  head,  a well-fleshed  neck, 

Deep  dewlaps  falling  from  the  chin, 

Long  in  the  flank,  broad  in  the  foot, 

Rough  hairy  ears,  and  horns  bent  in.” 

Such  an  animal  would  hardly  win  a prize  from  our 
modern  judges  of  stock.  But  Virgil,  be  it  remembered, 
is  giving  instructions  for  selection  with  an  eye  to  breed- 
ing purposes  exclusively;  and  an  Italian  cow  of  the 
present  day  would  not  be  considered  by  us  a handsome 
animal.  Besides,  the  object  of  the  Roman  breeder  was 
to  obtain  animals  which  would  be  “strong  to  labor," 
- — good  beasts  under  the  yoke;  not  such  as  would  lay 
on  the  greatest  weight  of  flesh  at  the  least  possible  cost, 
for  the  purposes  of  the  butcher.  His  points  of  a good 
horse  are  entirely  different,  and  approach  more  nearly 
our  own  ideal — “ Fine  in  the  head,  short  in  the  barrel, 
broad  on  the  back,  full  in  the  chest."  Bay  and  dapple- 
gray  he  chooses  for  color;  white  and  chestnut  he  con- 
siders the  worst.  He  had  not  reached  the  more  catholic 
philosophy  of  the  modern  horse-dealer,  that  “no  good 
horse  was  ever  yet  of  a bad  color." 


not  least  successfully  by  Thomson,  in  the  eulogy  upon  his  na- 
tive island  with  which  he  begins  the  fifth  book  of  his  poem  on 
“ Liberty.” 


THE  GEORGICS. 


35 


The  nature  of  the  subject  in  this  Third  Georgic  allows 
the  poet  to  indulge  even  more  frequently  in  digres- 
sions. He  gives  a picture  of  pastoral  life  under  the 
hot  suns  of  Numidia,  where  the  herdsman  or  shepherd 
drives  his  charge  from  pasture  to  pasture,  carrying 
with  him  all  he  wants,  like  a Roman  soldier  in  a 
campaign;  and  again  of  his  winter  life  in  some  vague 
northern  region  which  he  calls  by  the  general  name  of 
Scythia,  but  where  they  seem  to  have  drunk  (in  imita- 
tion of  wine,  as  the  southern  poet  compassionately 
phrases  it)  some  kind  of  beer  or  cider.  But  the  most 
remarkable  of  these  passages  is  that  which  closes  the 
book,  and  describes  the  ravages  of  some  terrible  pesti- 
lence which,  beginning  with  the  flocks  and  herds,  ex- 
tended at  last  to  the  wild  beasts  and  to  the  birds,  and 
even  to  the  fish.  There  is  no  historical  account  of  such 
a visitation  in  Italy;  and  it  is  very  probable  that  Yirgil 
used  liis  license  as  a poet  to  embellish  with  imaginary 
details  some  ordinary  epidemic,  in  order  to  present  to 
his  readers  a companion  picture  to  that  of  the  great 
plague  at  Athens,  which  had  been  so  powerfully  de- 
scribed by  his  favorite  model  Lucretius. 

There  is  no  need  to  say  very  much  about  the  Fourth 
and  last  of  the  Georgies,  which  treats  exclusively  of 
bees.  These  little  creatures  were  evidently  of  more  im- 
portance in  the  rural  economy  of  the  Romans  than  they 
commonly  are  in  ours.  Before  the  discovery  of  the  sugar- 
cane, the  sweetening  properties  of  honey  would  be  much 
more  valuable  than  they  are  now;  and  the  inhabitants 
of  a warm  climate  like  Italy  make  more  use  of  saccha- 
rine matter,  as  an  article  of  ordinary  food,  than  we  do. 
But  the  habits  and  natural  history  of  the  insect  com- 
monwealth to  which  Yirgil  devotes  this  book  are  so  cu- 
rious and  so  little  understood,  that  they  would  only 


36 


VIRGIL. 


find  an  appropriate  place  in  a special  treatise.  There 
appears  to  have  been  no  want  of  interest  or  research 
upon  the  subject  among  the  ancients,  for  the  Greek 
philosopher  Aristomachus  is  said  to  have  devoted  fifty- 
eight  years  to  this  single  branch  of  zoology.  Virgil 
certainly  would  not  help  us  much  in  a scientific  point 
of  view.  The  bees  were  mysteries  to  him,  even  more 
than  to  us;  and,  marvellous  as  they  are,  he  made  them 
more  marvellous  still.  He  was  quite  aware  that  they 
had  some  peculiarities  in  the  matter  of  sex;  but  he 
makes  the  queen  bee,  who  is  really  the  mother  of  the 
swarm,  a king,  and  imagines  that  they  pick  up  their 
young  ones  from  the  leaves  and  flowers.  He  gives  also 
— and  with  an  air  of  as  much  practical  reality  as  can 
be  expected  from  a poet — minute  instructions  for  ob- 
taining a stock  of  bees  at  once  from  the  carcass  of  a steer, 
beaten  and  crushed  into  a mass,  and  excluded  from  air: 
evidently  a misapplication  of  what  is  said  to  be  a fact 
in  natural  history,  that  bees  will  take  up  their  quarters 
occasionally  in  the  dead  body  of  an  animal.  The  honey 
he  considers  to  be  some  kind  of  dew  that  falls  from 
heaven.  One  rule  which  he  gives  for  preventing  the 
young  swarms  from  rising  at  undue  times  has  staggered 
some  inexperienced  commentators.  He  advises  the 
owner  to  pick  out  the  queen  bees,  and  clip  their  wings. 
Such  a recipe  certainly  suggests  at  first  sight  the  old 
preliminary  caution — “First  catch  your  bee:’'  but  an 
experienced  bee-keeper  will  find  no  difficulty  in  per- 
forming such  an  operation,  if  needful.* 

The  fine  episode  with  which  this  book  concludes,  in 

* When  we  find,  in  a modern  manual,  even  directions  “ How 
to  tame  vicious  bees,”  it  is  hard  to  say  what  a master  of  bee- 
craft  can  not  do.  —See  Mr.  Pettigrew’s  clever  and  amusing 

Handy  Book.” 


TEE  GEORGICS. 


3? 


which  the  poet  relates  the  legend  of  Orpheus  and  Eury- 
dice,  is  more  attractive  than  all  his  discourse  upon  bee- 
keeping. 

The  Georgies  have  generally  been  considered  as  the 
poet’s  most  complete  work,  and  it  is  here,  undoubtedly, 
that  he  shows  us  most  of  himself, — of  his  habits,  his 
tastes,  and  his  religious  opinions.  They  are  poetical 
essays  on  the  dignity  of  labor.  Warlike  glory  was  the 
popular  theme  of  the  day;  but  Virgil  detests  war,  and 
he  seeks  to  enthrone  labor  in  its  place.  He  looks  upon 
tillage  as,  in  some  sort,  a war  in  itself,  but  of  a nobler 
kind — “a  holy  war  of  men  against  the  earth,”  as  a 
French  writer  expresses  it.*  He  compares  its  details, 
in  more  than  one  passage,  with  those  of  the  camp  and 
of  the  battle-field.  But  besides  this,  the  Georgies  con- 
tain what  seems  to  be  a protest  against  the  fashionable 
atheism  of  his  age.  He  sets  the  worship  of  the  gods  in 
the  first  place  of  all. 

“ First,  pay  all  reverence  to  the  Powers  of  heaven”— 

is  his  instruction  to  his  pupils — “From  Jove  all  things 
begin.”  His  motto  might  have  been  that  which  the 
Benedictines  in  their  purer  days  adopted — “ Ora  et  la- 
bora” — “Pray  and  work.”  It  has  been  commonly  said 
that  Virgil  was  in  his  creed  an  Epicurean;  that  he 
looked  upon  the  gods  as  beings  who,  in  our  English 
poet's  words, 

“Lie  beside  their  nectar,  careless  of  mankind.” 

But  a study  of  his  writings  will  go  far  to  show  that 
such  is  not  the  case;  that  whatever  the  distinct  articles 
of  his  creed  may  have  been,  he  had  a deep  individual 


* Jules  Legris. 


38 


VIRGIL.  ' 


sense  of  the  personal  existence  of  great  powers  which 
ruled  the  affairs  of  men ; that  Nature  was  not  to  him,  as  to 
Lucretius,  a mere  shrine  of  hidden  mysteries,  unlocked  to 
the  Epicurean  alone,  but  that  he  had  an  eye  and  a heart 
for  all  its  riches  and  beauties,  as  the  “ skirts”  of  a di 
vine  glory.  In  all  his  verse  this  feeling  shows  itself 
but  nowhere  more  plainly  than  in  the  Georgies. 

It  is  said  that  this  particular  work  was  undertaken 
by  the  desire  of  Maecenas,  with  the  hope  of  turning  the 
minds  of  the  veteran  soldiers,  to  whom  grants  of  land 
had  been  made  in  return  for  their  services,  to  a more 
peaceful  ambition  in  the  quiet  cultivation  of  their  farms. 
Whether  it  had  that  result  may  well  be  doubted:  the 
discharged  soldier,  however  heartily  he  might  take  to 
farming,  would  scarcely  go  to  a poet  as  his  instructor. 
The  practical  influence  of  these  treatises  in  any  way  is 
equally  doubtful.  “It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose,” 
says  Dean  Merivale,  “ that  Virgil’s  verses  induced  any 
Roman  to  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  or  take  from  his 
bailiff  the  management  of  his  own  estates;  but  they 
served  undoubtedly  to  revive  some  of  the  simple  tastes 
and  sentiments  of  the  olden  time,  and  perpetuated, 
amid  the  vices  and  corruptions  of  the  Empire,  a pure 
stream  of  sober  and  innocent  enjoyment.”  * 


* 'l  Fall  of  Rome,”  iv.  576. 


TEE  JENEID. 


39 


THE  aENEID. 

Chapter  I. 

THE  SHIPWRECK  ON  THE  COAST  OP  CARTHAGE. 

The  JEneid,  like  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  is  a Tale  of 
Troy.  The  fascination  of  that  remarkable  cycle  of 
legend  had  not  weakened  after  the  lapse  of  ten  centuries. 
Virgil  not  only  set  himself  deliberately  to  imitate 
Homer  in  his  method  of  poetical  treatment,  but  he  goes 
to  him  for  his  subject.  He  even  makes  his  own  poem, 
in  some  sort,  a sequel  to  the  Iliad — at  least  as  much  so 
as  the  Odyssey  is.  As  the  subject  of  this  latter  poem 
is  the  wanderings  and  final  establishment  in  his  native 
country  of  the  Greek  hero  Ulysses  after  victory,  so 
Virgil  gives  us  the  story  of  the  escape  of  a Trojan  hero 
from  the  ruin  of  his  city,  and  the  perils  by  land  and 
sea  which  he  encountered,  until  his  final  settlement  in 
the  distant  west,  in  the  land  which  the  gods  had 
promised  him.  ./Eneas,  like  Ulysses,  is  described  as  a 
man  of  many  woes  and  sufferings;  and  like  him,  though 
he  has  the  justice  and  the  deliberate  counsels  of  heaven 
all  on  his  side,  the  enmity  of  one  angry  deity  is  per- 
mitted to  vex  and  thwart  him  for  many  long  years. 
This  ./Eneas — reputed  son  of  the  goddess  Venus  by  a 
mortal  husband,  Anchises — had  played  no  unimport- 
ant part  in  the  defence  of  Troy.  Had  we  not  been  told 
that  King  Priam  had  no  less  than  fifty  sons,  it  might 
have  been  said  that  he  stood  very  near  the  throne.  For 
he  was  the  representative  of  the  younger  branch  of  the 
house  of  Dardanus — the  family  of  Assaracus — as  Priam 


40 


VIRGIL. 


was  of  the  elder  branch,  that  of  Hus.*  A sort  of  half- 
mysterious  glory  is  cast  round  him  in  the  Iliad.  He 
is  there  addressed  as  “counsellor  of  the  Trojans;”  they 
honored  him,  we  are  told,  “equally  with  the  godlike 
Hector  and  Neptune  is  made  to  utter  a prophecy 
that  Jupiter  has  rejected  the  house  of  Priam,  but  that 
“iEneas,  and  his  sons,  and  his  sons’  sons”  should  here- 
after reign  over  the  Trojans.  ”f  Some  Homeric  critics 
have  even  fancied  that  they  detected,  in  some  passages 
of  Homer’s  poem,  a jealousy  between  iEneas  and  the 
sons  of  Priam.  But  this  surely  arises  from  reading 
Homer  by  the  light  of  Virgil,  and  thus  anticipating  the 
future  turn  of  events,  when,  after  the  death  of  Hector 
and  the  fall  of  Priam’s  kingdom,  the  prince  of  the  house 
of  Assaracus  should  rebuild  the  Trojan  fortunes  on  the 
far-off  shores  of  Italy. 

Like  Homer,  Virgil  dashes  at  once  into  the  heart  of 
his  story.  This  is  how  he  introduces  his  hero  : 

“Arms  and  the  man  I sing,  who  first, 

By  fate  of  Ilian  realm  amerced, 

To  fair  Italia  onward  bore, 

And  landed  on  Lavinium’s  shore.”  X 

He  tells  us  nothing,  however,  for  the  present,  of  the 

* The  following  pedigree  is  mythical— as  pedigrees  often  are  : 

Tros. 


Ilus.  Assaracus. 

I ^ I 

Laomedon.  Capys. 

Priam.  Anchises. 

iEneas. 

t Iliad,  xx.  306. 

% The  extracts  are  in  all  cases  (where  not  otherwise  marked) 
from  Mr.  Conington’s  translation,  and  are  made  with  the  per- 
mission of  his  representatives  and  publishers. 


THE  JENE1D. 


41 


escape  from  Troy  and  the  embarkation  of  the  fugitives, 
or  of  the  guiding  oracles  in  obedience  to  which  they 
had  sailed  forth  in  quest  of  this  new  home.  He  only 
shows  us  iEneas  on  the  sea,  having  just  set  sail  from 
Sicily,  where  the  angry  Queen  of  Heaven  catches  sight 
of  him.  Juno,  we  must  remember — Yirgil,  apparently, 
has  no  idea  that  any  one  could  need  reminding  of  it — 
Juno  has  never  forgotten  or  forgiven  that  scene  upon 
Mount  Ida,  where  the  Trojan  Paris  preferred  the  fascina- 
tions— or  the  bribes — of  Venus  to  her  own  stately  charms. 
She  had  persuaded  her  royal  consort,  the  king  of  gods 
and  men,  to  consent  to  the  downfall  of  the  accursed 
race;  and  she  persecutes  this  unhappy  remnant,  now 
on  its  voyage,  with  unrelenting  hate.  Even  the  poet, 
who  makes  use  of  her  persecution  as  one  of  the  main- 
springs of  his  story,  professes  his  astonishment  at  its 
bitterness — 

“ Can  such  deep  hate  find  place  in  breasts  divine  ?”  t 
She  had  another  reason,  too,  for  her  present  jealous 
feelings.  The  city  of  Carthage,  where  she  was  es- 
pecially honored,  she  had  hoped  to  make  the  mistress 
of  the  world.  And  now — so  the  inexorable  Fates  have 
woven  it  in  their  web — this  new  brood  from  Troy  are 
to  destroy  it  in  the  years  to  come.  Rome,  and  not 
Carthage,  the  Roman  poet  would  thus  convey  to  his 
readers,  is  to  have  this  universal  empire. 

But  they  have  not  reached  Latium  yet,  these  hateful 
Trojans.  They  never  shall.  The  Queen  of  Heaven 
betakes  herself  to  the  King  of  the  Winds,  where  he  sits 
enthroned  in  his  Homeric  island  of  iEolia,  controlling 
his  boisterous  subjects: 

t Milton  has  translated  the  line  almost  literally: 

“ In  heavenly  spirits  could  such  perversion  dwell?” 

—Par.  Lost,  vi. 


42 


VIRGIL. 


“ They  with  the  rock’s  reverberent  roar 
Chafe  blustering  round  their  prison  door: 

He,  throned  on  high,  the  sceptre  sways, 

Controls  their  moods,  their  wrath  allays. 

Break  but  that  sceptre,  sea  and  land 
And  heaven’s  ethereal  deep 
Before  them  they  would  whirl  like  sand, 

And  through  the  void  air  sweep.” 

At  Juno’s  request  iEolus  lets  loose  his  prisoners.  Out 
rush  the  winds  in  mad  delight. 

“ All  in  a moment,  sun  and  skies 
Are  blotted  from  the  Trojans’  eyes: 

Black  night  is  brooding  o’er  the  deep, 

Sharp  thunder  peals,  live  lightnings  leap: 

The  stoutest  warrior  holds  his  breath, 

And  looks  as  on  the  face  of  death. 

At  once  iEneas  thrilled  with  dread ; 

Forth  from  his  breast,  with  hands  outspread, 

These  groaning  words  he  drew : 

1 0 happy  thrice,  and  yet  again, 

Who  died  at  Troy  like  valiant  men, 

E’en  in  their  parents’  view ! 

O Diomed,  first  of  Greeks  in  fray, 

Why  passed  I not  the  plain  that  day, 

Yielding  my  life  to  you, 

Where,  stretched  beneath  a Phrygian  sky, 

Fierce  Hector,  tall  Sarpedon,  lie: 

Where  Simois  tumbles  ’neath  his  wave 
Shields,  helms,  and  bodies  of  the  brave?  ’ ” 

The  fleet  is  scattered  in  all  directions:  some  ships  are 
cast  on  the  rocks;  one  goes  down  with  all  its  crew  be- 
fore their  leader’s  eyes.  But  Neptune,  the  sea-god, 
comes  to  the  rescue.  Friendly  to  the  Trojans,  as  Juno 
is  hostile  to  them,  he  resents  the  interference  of  the 
King  of  the  Winds  in  his  dominions  — he  knows  by 
whose  instance  he  has  dared  this  outrage.  He  sum- 


THE  JENEID. 


43 


mons  the  offending  winds,  and  chides  them  with  stem 
authority: 

“ Back  to  your  master  instant  flee, 

And  tell  him,  not  to  him  but  me 
The  imperial  trident  of  the  sea 
Fell  by  the  lot’s  award ; 

His  is  that  prison-house  of  stone, 

A prison,  Eurus,  all  your  own; 

There  let  him  lord  it  to  his  mind, 

The  jailer-monarch  of  the  wind, 

But  keep  its  portal  barred.” 

So  the  tempest  is  stilled,  and  iEneas,  with  seven  ships, 
the  survivors  of  his  fleet  of  twenty,  runs  into  a land- 
locked harbor  on  the  coast  of  Carthage.  The  crews 
light  a fire,  and  grind  and  parch  their  corn,  while  .Eneas 
goes  farther  inland  to  reconnoitre,  and  kills  deer  to 
mend  their  meal.  Wine  they  have  good  store  of — the 
parting  gift  from  King  Acestes,  late  their  host  in  Sicily. 
The  chief,  though  in  sad  anxiety  as  to  the  fate  of  his 
absent  comrades,  speaks  to  the  rest  in  words  of  good 
cheer: 


“ You  that  have  seen  grim  Scylla  rave, 

And  heard  her  monsters  yell,— 

You  that  have  looked  upon  the  cave 
Where  savage  Cyclops  dwell, — 

Come,  cheer  your  souls,  your  fears  forget  I 
This  suffering  may  yield  us  yet 
A pleasant  tale  to  tell.” 

iEneas  has  his  advocate,  too,  in  the  celestial  council. 
His  goddess-mother  Venus  pleads  with  her  father  Ju- 
piter to  have  pity  on  her  offspring.  And  Jupiter — very 
open  to  influence  of  this  kind  now,  as  in  Homer’s  story 
— reveals  for  her  comfort  the  secrets  of  fate.  .Eneas 
shall  reach  Latium  safely,  and  reign  there  three  years. 
His  son  lulus — or  Ascanius,  as  he  is  otherwise  called — 


44 


VIRGIL. 


shall  succeed  him,  and  transfer  the  seat  of  power  from 
Lavinium  to  his  own  new-founded  city,  Alba  Longa. 
Three  hundred  years  his  race  shall  rule  there,  till  in  due 
course  the  twin-brothers  Romulus  and  Remus  shall  be 
born  to  the  war-god  Mars,  and  the  elder  brother  shall 
lay  the  foundations  of  Rome.  To  the  glories  of  this 
new  capital  the  Father  of  the  gods  will  assign  neither 
limit  nor  end.  The  wrongs  of  Troy  shall  be  redressed. 
The  sons  of  the  East,  in  their  new  home,  shall  avenge 
themselves  on  their  enemies. 

“ So  stands  my  will.  There  comes  a day. 

While  Rome’s  great  ages  hold  their  way, 

When  old  Assaracus’s  sons 
Shall  quit  them  on  the  Myrmidons, 

O’er  Phthia  and  Mycenae  reign, 

And  humble  Argos  to  their  chain. 

From  Troy’s  fair  stock  shall  Caesar  rise, 

The  limits  of  whose  victories 
Are  ocean,  of  his  fame  the  skies; 

Great  Julius,  proud  that  style  to  bear. 

In  name  and  blood  lulus’  heir.” 

Thus,  before  he  has  concluded  the  first  book  of  his 
great  poem,  the  poet  has  taken  us  into  his  counsels  as 
to  the  purport  of  the  song.  It  is  not  a mere  epic  ro- 
mance, in  which  we  are  to  be  charmed  with  heroic 
deeds  and  exciting  adventures;  it  is,  like  some  of  our 
modern  novels,  a romance  with  a purpose;  and  the  pur- 
pose is  the  claiming  for  the  great  house  of  Julius  the 
rightful  empire  of  Rome,  and  the  celebration  of  the 
glories  of  that  house  in  the  person  of  Augustus.  And 
as  the  Iliad  of  Homer,  beyond  the  mere  vocation  of  the 
poet  to  arouse  and  charm  a warlike  audience  by  the  re- 
cital of  deeds  of  arms,  had  its  own  purpose  also — the 
glorification  of  the  Greek  nation — so  the  Roman  poet 
may  be  said  to  have  written  a counter-Iliad,  to  extol 


THE  ^ENEID. 


45 


the  later  fortunes  of  the  royal  house  of  Troy  in  the  de- 
scendants, as  he  is  pleased  to  imagine  them,  of  lulus. 
For  any  historic  foundation  of  such  a genealogy  we 
may  look  in  vain.  King  Brute  stands  upon  much  the 
same  historical  level,  as  the  ancestor  of  the  Britons,  as 
can  be  claimed  for  lulus  of  Troy  as  the  founder  of  the 
Julian  house  and  of  Rome.  But,  for  the  present,  we 
must  be  content  to  assume  bis  existence,  and  to  follow 
the  course  of  the  narrative  as  the  poet  wills.  The  claim 
of  Trojan  descent  is  not  an  invention  of  Virgil’s,  though 
he  may  have  been  the  first  to  work  it  out  so  much  in 
detail.  It  was  a claim  in  which  his  countrymen  always 
delighted,  and  there  were  not  wanting  traditions  in  its 
support.  Another  purpose,  also,  Virgil  seems  to  have 
at  heart.  He  does  not  care  so  much,  after  all,  for  the 
subjugation  of  Greece  and  the  extension  of  the  imperial 
rule  of  Rome.  The  empire  of  Augustus  is  to  be  peace. 
There  has  been  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  of  war. 
In  the  prognostications  of  the  future  of  his  nation,  even 
here  we  are  reminded  of  the  strains  of  the  “Pollio.” 
To  the  soul  of  the  Roman  poet— unlike  his  master 
Homer  in  this — war,  and  more  especialty  civil  war,  is 
absolutely  hateful.  He  can  describe  it,  when  needed 
for  his  purpose,  and  describe  it  well ; but  it  is  as  the 
scourge  of  nations,  or  at  best  the  terrible  remedy  for 
greater  evils, — not,  as  the  Greek  poet  calls  it,  “the  strife 
which  is  the  joy  of  men.” 

Venus  loses  no  time  in  furthering,  so  far  as  she  may, 
the  counsels  of  Jupiter.  She  puts  into  the  heart  of  the 
Queen  of  Carthage,  on  whose  shores  HEneas  and  his 
crews  have  now  been  cast,  feelings  of  pity  and  compas- 
sion towards  the  shipwrecked  strangers.  She  comes  in 
person,  also,  to  comfort  her  son  HEneas  in  his  trouble. 
Attended  by  his  faithful  friend  Achates,  he  is  explor- 


46 


VIRGIL. 


ing,  like  a careful  leader,  the  strange  coast  on  which  he 
finds  himself— 

“ When  in  the  bosom  of  the  wood 
Before  him,  lo,  his  mother  stood, 

In  mien  and  gear  a Spartan  maid, 

Or  like  Harpalyce  arrayed, 

Who  tires  fleet  coursers  in  the  chase, 

And  heads  the  swiftest  streams  of  Thrace. 

Slung  from  her  shoulders  hangs  a bow; 

Loose  to  the  wind  her  tresses  flow; 

Bare  was  her  knee;  her  mantle’s  fold 
The  gathering  of  a knot  controlled. 

And  ‘ Saw  ye,  youths,’  she  asks  them,  4 say, 

One  of  my  sisters  here  astray ; 

A silver  quiver  at  her  side, 

And  for  a scarf  a lynx’s  hide; 

Or  pressing  on  the  wild  boar’s  track 
With  upraised  dart  and  voiceful  pack?  ’ ” 

There  is  in  this  description  a happy  reminiscence  of 
an  earlier  legend.  In  such  guise — not  with  any  of  the 
meretricious  attractions  assigned  to  the  goddess  of  Cy- 
prus and  of  Paphos,  hut  as  a simple  mountain  nymph 
— had  she  won  her  mortal  lover,  the  Trojan  shepherd 
Anchises,  from  whom  this  her  dear  son  was  born.  So 
ran  the  fable;  and  it  was  added  that  she  had  enjoined 
her  lover  never  to  disclose  the  secret  of  the  child’s  birth, 
nor  to  boast  of  the  favor  shown  him  by  a goddess,  but 
to  bring  the  boy  up  in  the  forests  of  Ida,  as  the  offspring 
of  a wood  nymph.  Anchises,  in  his  pride,  had  neg- 
lected or  forgotten  her  warning,  and  was  punished  by 
premature  weakness  and  a helpless  old  age. 

Professing  herself  to  be  but  a Tyrian  damsel,  Venus 
replies  to  her  son’s  questions  as  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
land.  They  are  a colony  from  Tyre;  their  queen,  Dido, 
has  fled  from  the  treachery  of  her  false  brother  Pygma- 
lion, who,  after  murdering  her  husband  Sicliseus,  had 


THE  JENEID. 


47 


possessed  himself  of  the  kingdom.  Hither  she  has  es- 
caped with  her  husband’s  wealth,  and  is  founding  a new 
city  on  the  coast  of  Africa.  iEneas  tells  her  in  return 
his  own  sad  story,  and  is  comforted  by  the  assurance 
that  all  his  fleet,  though  scattered,  are  safe — all  but  one 
unhappy  vessel  and  her  crew.  Then,  as  she  turns  to 
leave  him,  the  disguised  divinity  becomes  apparent. 

“ Ambrosial  tresses  round  her  head 
A more  than  earthly  fragrance  shed; 

Her  falling  robe  her  footsteps  swept, 

And  showed  the  goddess  as  she  stept.” 

iEneas  and  his  companion  mount  the  crest  of  the  hill, 
whence  they  look  down  upon  the  half-finished  walls  of 
Carthage,  and  the  swarming  bands  of  workmen.  They 
are  digging  out  the  harbor,  planning  that  most  essen- 
tial structure  in  a city  of  any  pretension,  an  amphi- 
theatre for  public  spectacles,  and  building  a magnificent 
temple  to  Juno.  Girt  with  a mist  of  invisibility  which 
Venus  has  thrown  round  them, — like  Ulysses  in  the 
court  of  Pliaeacia — the  strangers  enter  the  brazen  gates 
of  the  temple.  All  is  magnificent  and  wonderful.  But, 
marvel  of  marvels!  both  walls  and  doors  are  sculptured 
wTith  a history  which  iEneas  knows  only  too  well. 
Even  here  is  recorded,  on  this  distant  and  unknown 
shore,  the  story  of  stories — the  Tale  of  Troy.  With 
eager  and  tearful  eyes  the  Trojan  chief  peruses  the  sev- 
eral groups,  and  identifies  the  various  incidents.  Here 
the  Greeks  fly  to  their  ships,  hard  pressed  by  Hector 
and  the  Trojans:  there,  again,  the  terrible  Achilles 
drives  the  Trojans  in  slaughter  before  him.  The  death 
of  young  Troilus,  hurled  from  his  chariot,  is  there;  and, 
to  match  the  picture,  Hector  dragged  at  Achilles’s 
chariot- wheels  round  the  city  walls.  Memnon  the  Ethi- 


48 


VIRGIL . 


opian  and  the  Amazon  Penthesilea  also  find  a place; 
and  there,  amidst  the  foremost  combatants,  iEneas  can 
recognize  himself. 

While  the  Trojon  chief  and  his  companion  Achates 
are  reading  this  sculptured  history,  the  queen  herself 
approaches.  And  while  they  admire  her  majesty  and 
grace,  conspicuous  amongst  all  her  train,  lo!  the  missing 
comrades  of  iEneas  make  their  appearance  before  her  as 
suppliants.  They  tell  the  story  of  their  shipwreck  on 
the  coast:  and  they  think  iEueas  is  lost,  as  he  had 
thought  they  were.  Then  the  mist  in  which  Venus  had 
wrapped  the  hero  and  his  comrade  dissolves,  and  the 
two  parties  recognize  and  welcome  each  other.  Dido, 
like  all  the  world,  has  heard  of  the  name  of  iEneas,  and 
the  sufferings  of  the  heroes  of  Troy.  She  can  pity 
such  sufferings  from  her  own  bitter  experience: 

“ Myself  not  ignorant  of  woe, 

Compassion  I have  learnt  to  show.” 

The  sentiment  has.  been  adopted  by  modern  writers  in 
all  languages.  (“She  had  suffered  persecution  and 
learnt  mercy.’”  says  Sterne  in  a like  case:  and  even  in 
Sterne’s  mffuth,  the  sentiment  is  natural  and  true. 

The  strangers  are  hospitably  welcomed,  and  offered 
every  facility  for  refitting  their  fleet,  and  preparing  for 
the  continuance  of  their  /oyage.  iEneas  sends  down  to 
his  ships  for  presents  wrorthy  of  so  kind  a hostess:  and, 
with  a father’s  pride,  he  sends  also  for  his  young  son  to 
introduce  him  to  the  queen.  The  evening  is  devoted  to 
feasting  and  revelry.  The  royal  bard — that  indispen- 
sable figure  in  all  courts,  Trojan  or  Tyrian  or  Greek — 
sings  to  the  assembled  guests.  It  is  to  be  remarked  that 
his  lay  is  not,  as  we  might  expect,  of  heroes  and  their 
deeds:  it  is  the  song  of  Silenus,  in  the  Pastorals,  over 


TEE  JENEID. 


49 


again— the  favorite  subject  of  the  poet,  the  wonders  of 
nature  and  creation. 

“ He  sings  the  wanderings  of  the  moon, 

The  sun  eclipsed  in  deadly  swoon; 

Whence  humankind  and  cattle  came, 

And  whence  the  rain-spout  and  the  flame, 

Arcturus  and  the  two  bright  bears, 

And  Hyads  weeping  showery  tears; 

Why  winter  suns  so  swiftly  go, 

And  why  the  winter  nights  move  slow.” 

All  the  while,  during  the  song  and  the  banquet,  the 
queen  is  fondling  the  fair  boy,  who  sits  next  to  her. 
Unhappy  Dido!  it  is  Cupid,  the  god  of  love,  who,  at  his 
false  mother’s  bidding,  has  assumed  the  shape  of 
iEneas’s  young  son.  The  true  Ascanius  lies  fast 
bound  in  an  enchanted  sleep,  by  Venus’s  machina- 
tions, in  her  bower  in  the  far  island  of  Cythera; 
and  the  Tyrian  queen  is  nursing  unawares  in  her 
bosom  the  passion  which  is  to  be  her  ruin.  iEneas  has 
already  become  an  object  of  tender  interest  to  her.  She 
hangs  upon  his  lips,  like  Desdemona  on  Othello’s: 

“ Much  of  great  Priam  asks  the  dame, 

Much  of  his  greater  son ; 

Now  in  what  armor  Memnon  came, 

Now  how  Achilles  shone.” 

Above  all,  she  begs  of  him  to  tell  his  own  story — his 
escape  and  his  seven  years’  wanderings.  And  iEneas 
begins;  and,  with  an  exact  imitation  of  Homer’s  man- 
agement of  his  story,  like  Ulysses  in  the  court  of  Alci- 
nous,  retraces  his  adventures  from  the  last  fatal  night  of 
Troy. 


50 


VIRGIL. 


Chapter  II. 

^ENEAS  RELATES  THE  FALL  OF  TROY. 

It  has  been  said  that  this  poem  is  a kind  of  supple* 
ment  to  the  Iliad.  ^Eneas  tells  11s  what  was  not  there 
told  by  Homer,  but  what  is  presupposed  in  his  Odyssey, 
— the  later  history  of  the  siege  and  capture  of  Troy. 
He  relates  at  length  the  stratagem  of  the  Wooden 
Hoi  *se,  by  which  the  Greeks  at  last  outwitted  their 
enemies.  The  fleet,  which  had  seemed  to  sail  for  home, 
had  withdrawn,  and  lay  concealed  in  the  harbor  of 
Tenedos.  The  wooden  fabric — dedicated  to  Minerva, 
as  the  tale  went — was  left  standing  outside  the  city.  It 
was  suggested  to  bring  it  within  the  walls,  when  the 
priest  Laocoon  rushed  to  prevent  it — suspecting  some 
such  stratagem  as  in  truth  had  been  contrived.  He 
even  hurled  his  spear  against  its  side,  and  might  have 
thus  made  a beginning  of  its  destruction,  when  behold, 
a prisoner  was  brought  in.  It  was  the  treacherous 
Sinon;  a Greek  who  had  undertaken  to  play  the  dan- 
gerous part  of  a double  spy.  The  tale  he  told  his  cap- 
tors  was  this:  that  he,  though  a Greek,  was  a fugitive 
from  Greek  vengeance — especially  from  the  hated 
Ulysses.  He  had  been  fixed  upon  as  a victim  to  propi- 
tiate the  offended  gods;  for  there  had  come  an  oracle 
from  Apollo,  that  as  the  blood  of  a virgin  had  to  be  shed 
to  propitiate  the  gales  on  the  expedition  to  Troy,  so 
blood — that  of  a Greek — must  purchase  their  return. 
Ulysees  had  contrived  that  Sinon  should  be  the  victim, 
and  it  was  to  escape  this  doom  that  he  had  thus  fled. 

The  Trojans  were  moved  to  pity — they  spared  the 
traitor’s  life;  only,  in  return,  King  Priam  adjured  him 


JEN E AS  RELATES  THE  FALL  OF  TROY, . 51 


to  tell  them  the  true  intent  of  the  Horse.  Sinon  de 
dared  that  the  Greeks  had  meant  to  set  it  up  themselves 
an  offering  to  Minerva,  within  the  Trojan  citadel  when 
they  should  have  captured  it;  it  behoved  the  Trojan*, 
now  to  seize  it  and  drag  it  within  the  walls:  for,  if  thi* 
were  done,  then — so  ran  the  oracles — Asia  should 
avenge  itself  upon  Europe,  and  the  Greeks  in  their  turn 
should  be  besieged  in  their  homes.* 

The  traitor’s  tale  was  all  too  easily  believed.  Tilers 
came,  too,  a fearful  omen,  which  hurried  the  Trojans  to 
adopt  this  false  counsel.  The  priest  Laocoon,  who  had 
dared  to  strike  the  wooden  monster,  was  seized,  while 
offering  sacrifice  to  Neptune,  with  his  two  sons,  by  two 
huge  sea-serpents  (so  old  is  the  belief,  false  or  true,  in 
these  apocryphal  monsters),  which  came  sailing  in  to  the 
beach  from  the  direction  of  Tenedos.  In  the  descrip- 
tion which  the  poet  gives  of  their  movements  at  sea,  we 
seem  to  be  reading  a versified  extract  from  the  log  of 
some  modern  sea-captain  : 

“ Amid  the  waves  they  rear  their  breasts, 

And  toss  on  high  their  sanguined  crests;  t 
The  hind-part  coils  along  the  deep, 

And  indulates  with  sinuous  sweep.” 

The  two  unhappy  youths  are  first  caught  and  strangled 
— then  the  father.  The  legend  is  well  known  to  others 
besides  students  of  the  iEneid,  from  the  marble  group 
of  the  Laocoon;  which,  however,  does  not  tell  the  story 
in  the  same  way,  or  in  so  probable  a shape,  as  the  poet 

* Dante  in  his  Inferno  punishes  Sinon  with  an  eternal  sweat- 
ing-sickness: a singular  penalty,  which  is  shared  only  by  Poti- 
phar’s  wife. — Inf.  xxx. 

t Nay,  the  “ crests”  spoken  of  seem  to  have  been  (as  reported 
of  the  modern  sea-serpent)  of  actual  hair;  since  Pindar,  as  Con- 
ington  has  noted,  calls  them  “ manes.” 


62 


VIRGIL. 


does,  since  it  represents  the  reptiles  as  embracing  all 
three  victims  at  once  in  their  folds.  Then,  with  glad 
shouts  and  songs  of  youths  and  maidens,  the  huge 
monster  was  dragged  over  a breach  made  purposely  in 
the  walls  of  Troy.  Yet  not  without  a voice  of  warning, 
disregarded,  from  Cassandra,  daughter  of  King  Priam, 
who  had  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  whose  fate  it  was, 
like  so  many  prophets  in  their  own  families,  to  prophesy 
in  vain — nor  without  difficulties  which  might  in  them- 
selves have  well  been  considered  presages  of  evil : 

“ Four  times  ’twas  on  the  threshold  stayed; 

Four  times  the  armor  clashed  and  brayed ; 

Yet  press  we  on,  with  passion  blind, 

All  forethought  blotted  from  our  mind, 

Till  the  dread  monster  we  install 
Within  the  temple’s  tower-built  wall.” 

Inside,  the  fabric  is  full  of  armed  Greeks.  How 
man}'  there  were  in  number  has  been  disputed — though 
possibly,  in  a legend  of  this  kind,  the  question  of 
more  or  fewer  is  scarcely  relevant.  It  is  a question, 
however,  which  derives  some  interest  from  the  fact 
that  it  was  one  of  the  difficulties  which  exercised  the 
mind  of  the  first  Napoleon  during  his  exile.  Studying 
the  siege  of  Troy  as  if  it  were  a mere  prosaic  operation 
in  modern  warfare,  he  was  struck  by  the  improbability 
of  the  whole  stratagem.  How  “ even  a single  company 
of  the  Guard  ” could  be  hid  in  such  a machine,  and 
dragged  from  some  distance  inside  the  city  walls, 
the  French  Emperor  was  unable  to  conceive,  and  re- 
garded the  story  as  an  infringement  of  even  a poet’s 
license.  Napoleon  was  not  much  of  a Latin  scholar, 
and,  so  far  as  the  main  point  of  his  criticism  went,  had 
depended  too  implicitly  upon  French  translators.  Se. 
grais,  discussing  the  question  in  a note,  thought  there 


AENEAS  RELATES  THE  FALL  OF  TROT.  53 


might  be  perhaps  some  two  or  three  hundred.  Indeed 
most  of  our  English  translators  have  gone  out  of 
their  way  to  exaggerate  the  number.  But  Virgil  him- 
self, as  has  been  pertinently  remarked  by  Dr.  Henry, 
only  makes  nine  men  actually  come  out  of  the  horse, 
all  of  whom  he  mentions  by  name.  The  poet  cer- 
tainly does  not  say  in  so  many  words  that  these 
were  all,  but  he,  at  least,  is  not  answerable  for  a larger 
number.  Among  the  nine  are  the  young  Neoptolemus, 
surnamed  Pyrrhus — “Red-liaired/’ — son  of  the  dead 
Achilles,  and  now  his  successor  in  the  recognized 
championship  of  the  force;  Sthenelus,  the  friend  and 
comrade  of  Diomed  (for  whose  absence  it  seems  hard 
to  account);  Machaon,  the  liero-physician,  whom  one 
hardly  expects  to  find  selected  for  such  a desperate 
service;  Epeus,  the  contriver  of  the  machine;  and 
Ulysses,  without  whose  aid  and  presence  no  such  strat- 
agem would  seem  complete. 

At  dead  of  night  the  traitor  Sinon  looked  out  to  sea, 
and  saw  a light  in  the  offing.  It  was  the  fire-signal 
from  Agamemnon’s  vessel;  the  Greek  fleet  had  come 
back  under  cover  of  the  darkness  from  its  lurking- 
place  at  Tenedos.  Then  he  silently  undid  the  fasten- 
ings of  the  horse,  and  the  Greek  adventurers,  as  has 
been  said,  emerged  from  their  wooden  prison. 

In  the  visions  of  the  night  .Eneas  saw  the  ghastly 
spectre  of  the  dead  Hector  stand  before  him, — 

“ All  torn  by  dragging  at  the  car, 

And  black  with  gory  dust  of  war. 

Ah,  what  a sight  was  there  to  view ! 

How  altered  from  the  man  we  knew, 

Our  Hector,  who  from  day’s  long  toil 
Comes  radiant  in  Achilles’  spoil, 

Or  with  that  red  right  hand,  which  casts 
The  fires  of  Troy  on  Grecian  masts  1 


54 


VIRGIL. 


Blood-clotted  hung  his  beard  and  hair, 

And  all  those  many  wounds  were  there, 

Which  on  his  gracious  person  fell 
Around  the  walls  he  loved  so  well.” 

Virgil  seems  to  have  followed  the  more  horrible  tradi- 
tion, which  appears  also  in  some  of  the  Greek  drama- 
tists, that  Achilles  fastened  Hector  to  his  chariot  while 
still  alive. 

The  shade  of  the  dead  hero  had  come  to  warn  iEneas 
not  to  throw  away  his  life  in  a hopeless  resistance. 
Troy  must  fall : but  to  iEneas,  as  the  hope  of  his  race, 
the  prince  of  the  house  of  Priam  formally  intrusts  the 
national  gods  of  Troy  and  the  sacred  fire  of  Vesta,  to 
be  carried  into  the  new  land  which  he  shall  colonize. 
It  is  a formal  transfer  of  the  kingdom  and  the  priest- 
hood to  the  younger  branch — the  line  of  Assaracus. 

HDneas  awoke,  as  he  goes  on  to  tell,  to  hear  the  war- 
cries  of  the  Greeks  and  the  clash  of  arms  within  the 
city.  Already  the  storming-party  had  attacked  and  set 
fire  to  the  house  of  Deiphobus, — to  whom  Helen,  will- 
ing or  unwilling,  had  been  made  over  on  the  death  of 
Paris;  and  therefore  naturally  the  first  point  which 
Menelaus  made  for.  iEneas  himself  is  summoned  by  a 
comrade,  Pan  thus,  to  come  to  the  rescue.  The  first 
despairing  words  of  Panthus  have  a pathos  which  has 
made  them  well  known.  No  English  idiom  will  ex- 
press with  equal  brevity  and  point  the  Latin  “ Fuimus ,” 
— “We  have  been — and  are  not,”  for  this  is  under 
stood.*  “ Fuimus  Troes” — Mr.  Conington’s  transla- 
tion gives  the  full  sense,  but  at  the  expense  of  its 
terseness : — 


* The  French  word  “feu”  used  of  a person  deceased,  is  pro- 
bably from  this  Latin  use  of  “ fui.” 


JENEAS  RELATES  THE  FALL  OF  TROY.  55 


“ We  have  been  Trojans — Troy  has  been — 

She  sat,  but  sits  no  more,  a queen.” 

It  was  a phrase  peculiarly  Roman.  So  they  used  the 
word  “ Vixi ” — “I  have  lived  ” — in  epitaphs,  to  express 
death;  though  in  this,  as  in  so  many  cases,  the  turn  of 
the  expression  is  due  to  that  euphemism  which  refrained 
from  using  any  words  of  direct  ill  omen. 

“The  father  of  the  gods,”  says  Panthus,  “has  trans- 
ferred all  our  glory  to  Argos.”  There  was  a story 
(alluded  to  in  one  of  the  lost  tragedies  of  Sophocles,  of 
which  we  have  but  a fragment)  that  on  the  night  of  the 
capture  of  Troy  the  tutelary  deities  departed  in  a body, 
taking  their  images  with  them.  It  is  a singular  parallel 
to  the  well-known  tradition,  that  before  the  fall  of  Jeru- 
salem supernatural  voices  were  heard  in  the  night  ex- 
claiming, “Let  us  depart  hence!”  The  Romans  had  a 
regular  formula  for  the  evocation  of  the  gods  from  an 
enemy’s  city,  and  inviting  them,  with  promises  of  all 
due  honors  and  sacrifices,  to  transfer  their  seat  to 
Rome;  and  to  attack  any  city  without  these  solemn 
preliminaries  was  held  to  bring  a curse  on  the  be- 
siegers.* 

JSneas  is  anxious  to  assure  his  fair  listener  that,  in 
spite  of  Hector’s  adjuration  to  fly,  he  did  all  that  man 
might  do  in  defence  of  his  king  and  his  countrymen. 
He  had  rallied  a band  of  brave  men,  and  for  a while 
made  head  against  the  enemy.  They  were  favored  by 
the  mistake  made  by  a party  of  Greeks,  who  took  them 
for  friends  in  the  darkness,  and  whom  they  cut  to 
pieces,  and  having  arrayed  themselves  in  their  armor, 
dealt  destruction  in  the  enemy’s  very  ranks.  But  all 


* For  this  reason,  says  Macrobius,  the  real  name  of  Rome  and 
of  its  guardian  deity  was  always  kept  a secret. 


56 


VIRGIL. 


resistance  was  in  vain.  The  appearance  of  Neoptole- 
mus — Pyrrhus— the  “Red-haired” — and  the  compari- 
son of  the  young  warrior  in  his  strength  and  beauty  to 
the  serpent  who  comes  forth  after  casting  its  winter 
slough,  is  fine  in  the  original,  and  finely  translated : 

“ Full  in  the  gate  see  Pyrrhus  blaze, 

A meteor,  shooting  steely  rays: 

So  flames  a serpent  into  light. 

On  poisonous  herbage  fed, 

Which  late  in  subterranean  night 
Through  winter  lay  as  dead: 

Now  from  its  ancient  wounds  undressed, 

Invigorate  and  young, 

Sunward  it  rears  its  glittering  breast, 

And  darts  its  three-forked  tongue.” 

And  the  fate  of  the  unhappy  Priam  is  an  equally 
beautiful  picture,  of  a different  tone: 

“ Perhaps  you  ask  of  Priam’s  fate: 

He,  when  he  sees  his  town  o’erthrown, 

Greeks  bursting  through  his  palace-gate, 

And  thronging  chambers  once  his  own, 

His  ancient  armor,  long  laid  by, 

Around  his  palsied  shoulders  throws, 

Girds  with  a useless  sword  his  thigh, 

And  totters  forth  to  meet  his  foes.” 

Hecuba,  who  with  her  women  is  clinging  to  the  altar, 
rebukes  her  husband  for  this  mad  attempt  to  match  his 
feeble  strength  against  the  enemy.  Still,  when  Pyrrhus 
rushes  into  the  hall  in  pursuit  of  one  of  Priam’s  sons, 
Polites,  and  slays  him  full  in  the  father’s  sight,  the  old 
man  hurls  a javelin  at  the  Greek  chief,  with  a taunting 
curse  upon  his  cruelty.  But  it  is 

“ A feeble  dart,  no  blood  that  drew; 

The  ringing  metal  turned  it  back. 

And  left  it  clinging,  weak  and  slack.” 


AENEAS  RELATES  THE  FALL  OF  TROY.  57 


And  the  ruthless  son  of  Achilles  drags  the  old  king  to 
the  altar,  and  slays  him  there. 

One  more  episode  of  that  terrible  night  iEneas  relates 
to  his  hostess : 

“ I stood  alone,  when  lo ! I mark, 

In  Vesta’s  temple  crouching  dark, 

The  traitress  Helen : the  broad  blaze 
Gives  me  full  light,  as  round  I gaze. 

She,  shrinking  from  the  Trojans’  hate, 

Made  frantic  by  their  city’s  fate, 

Nor  dreading  less  the  Danaan  sword, 

The  vengeance  of  her  injured  lord, — 

She,  Troy’s  and  Argos’  common  fiend, 

Sat  cowering,  by  the  altar  screened. 

My  blood  was  fired:  fierce  passion  woke 
To  quit  Troy’s  fall  by  one  sure  stroke/’ 

But  his  goddess-mother,  Venus,  stays  his  hand,  and 
bids  him  think  rather  of  saving  his  wife,  and  aged 
father,  and  infant  son.  Virgil  gives  us  no  hint  of 
the  other  story  of  Helen’s  discovery  by  her  angry  hus- 
band Menelaus,  who  was  lifting  his  sword  to  kill  the 
adultress,  when  his  arm  fell  powerless  before  the  fas- 
cination of  her  beauty. 

Obedient  to  the  goddess,  says  .Eneas,  he  went  to 
seek  his  father  Anchises,  that  he  might  carry  him  with 
him  in  his  flight.  But  the  old  man  refused  to  move. 
He  would  die,  he  said,  in  Troy.  Life  might  be  dear  to 
the  young;  but  for  himself,  even  the  tender  mercies  of 
the  enemy  would  give  him  all  he  seeks,  though  they 
leave  his  corpse  unburied, — 

“ He  lacks  not  much  that  lacks  a grave.” 

The  desperate  entreaties  of  his  son  were  all  in  vain, 
until  there  came  an  omen  from  heaven.  While  ./Eneas 
was  threatening — since  the  old  man  would  not  be  saved 


58 


VIRGIL. 


— to  rush  himself  again  into  the  fight  and  meet  a war- 
rior’s death,  his  wife  Creusa  placed  their  young  son 
lulus  in  his  arms.  Lo!  on  the  child’s  head  there  played 
a lambent  light  of  flame.  The  mother  and  ^Eneas 
would  have  sought  to  extinguish  it,  but  Aucliises  rec- 
ognized in  it  a sign  from  heaven.  Virgil  reads  us  no 
special  interpretation,  but  surely  he  meant  his  Roman 
readers  to  understand  that  the  seal  of  sovereignty  was 
thus  early  set  upon  the  founder  of  the  great  house  of 
Julius.  Thunder  on  the  left  hand — always  the  best  of 
auguries — and  a meteor  flashing  across  the  sky  and 
pointing  out  their  path  to  the  fugitives,  confirm  the 
omen. 

So  the  old  man  was  lifted  on  his  son’s  shoulders, 
lulus  walking  by  his  side,  and  Creusa  following  at 
some  distance.  They  were  to  meet  outside  the  city,  at 
the  temple  of  Ceres.  Ancliises  bore  in  his  hands  the 
little  images  of  the  household  gods  (like  Laban’s  tera- 
phim)  and  the  sacred  fire;  for  .Eneas  himself,  red- 
handed  from  the  battle,  might  not  touch  them.  But 
soon  the  steps  of  their  enemies  were  heard  in  pursuit; 
and  .Eneas,  making  his  way  with  his  precious  burden 
through  by-paths  to  the  place  of  rendezvous,  reached  it 
only  to  find  that  though  many  other  fugitives,  men, 
women,  and  children,  had  assembled  there,  the  un- 
happy Creusa  had  not  followed  him.  Cursing  men 
and  gods  alike  in  his  agony,  he  retraced  his  steps  to- 
wards Troy,  and  even  penetrated  unharmed  into  the 
wreck  of  Priam’s  palace,  crying  aloud  his  wife’s  name. 
Suddenly  her  shade  appeared  to  him,  and  bade  him 
not  continue  so  vain  a search,  or  grieve  for  a loss 
which  was  but  the  fulfilment  of  the  counsels  of  heaven. 
She  is  content  to  know  the  future  glories  which  are  in 
store  for  her  husband,  and  thankful  that  her  own  fate 


JUNE  AS  CONTINUES  IIIS  NARRATIVE . 59 


lias  been  death  (we  are  left  to  suppose,  at  the  hands  of 
the  Greeks)  rather  Ilian  captivity  and  slavery.  iEneas 
listened,  and  at  once,  obedient  to  the  recognized  voice 
of  the  gods,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  as  is  his  charac- 
ter throughout,  yielded  to  his  fate,  and  hid  himself 
with  his  little  band  of  fugitives  in  the  forests  of  Mount 
Ida.  There  they  had  spent  the  winter  months  in  build- 
ing themselves  a little  fleet  of  galleys  out  of  the  abun- 
dant pine-wood;  and  with  the  early  summer  launched 
upon  the  seas,  wholly  in  ignorance  of  their  destination, 
but  awaiting  confidently  the  guidance  of  heaven  to- 
wards their  promised  resting-place. 


Chapter  III. 

.2ENEAS  CONTINUES  HIS  NARRATIVE. 

So,  with  his  father  and  his  infant  son,  and  carrying 
with  him  the  national  gods  and  sacred  fire  of  Troy, 
iEneas  and  the  remnant  of  the  Trojans  had  set  forth 
upon  their  voyage  for  the  unknown  shores  of  Hesperia 
— the  “Land  of  the  West.”  Their  first  resting-place 
was  on  the  friendly  coast  of  Thrace,  where  HSneas  laid 
the  foundations  of  a city  which  was  to  bear  his  name. 
A strange  adventure  befell  him  there.  While  he  was 
pulling  some  cornel-twigs  which  grew  out  of  a mound, 
he  found,  to  his  horror,  that  the  ends  dropped  blood. 
A third  time,  after  prayer  to  avert  the  omen,  he 
plucked  a sapling,  when  a hollow  voice  from  be- 
low warned  him  to  desist  from  such  cruelty.  It  is 
the  grave  of  the  unhappy  Polydorus,  a young  son 
of  Priam,  whom  his  father,  when  Troy  became  hard 
pressed,  had  sent  away  with  some  of  his  treasures 
to  the  safe  keeping  of  the  king  of  Thrace,  who 


GO 


VIRGIL. 


for  tlio  sake  of  these  treasures  had  basely  murdered 
him.  The  cornel-wood  spears  with  which  lie  had  been 
transfixed  had  taken  root,  and  the  blood  bad  flowed 
from  his  body.*  They  did  but  wait  to  pay  due  honors 
to  the  shade  of  Polydorus,  and  then  hastened  from  the 
accursed  coast.  Landing  next  on  the  sacred  isle  of 
Delos,  they  consulted  the  oracle  there  as  to  their  future 
home.  Apollo  was  as  enigmatical  as  his  wont — he  bade 
them  “seek  out  their  ancient  mother. ” They  under- 
stood this  to  be  spoken  of  the  ancient  cradle  of  their 
race;  Ancliises  thought  the  phrase  pointed  to  Crete,  the 
birthplace  of  their  ancestral  hero  Teucrus,  and  where 
stood  the  ancient  Mount  Ida,  from  which  the  mountain 
in  the  Troad  derived  its  name.  And  Idomeneus,  the 
king  of  Crete,  who  had  joined  the  war  against  Troy, 
had  been  driven  from  his  kingdom,  and  left  a vacant 
throne,  f To  Crete  they  sailed,  and  there  began  to  build 
a city,  to  be  called  Pergamia,  after  the  citadel  of  Troy. 
But  a year  of  deadly  pestilence  fell  on  man  and  beast ; 
and  in  a dream  iEneas  saw  the  angry  gods  of  Troy 
standing  by  him  “in  the  full  moonlight  that  streamed 
through  the  windows,”  and  warning  him  that  the  prom- 
ised land,  the  ancient  home  of  their  race,  is  not  in  Crete, 
but  Hesperia — the  “Land  of  the  West” — whence  came 


* Horrible  as  the  legend  is,  Spenser  thought  it  worth  adopt- 
ing. The  Red-Cross  Knight,  to  make  a garland  for  Fidessa,  tears 
branches  from  the  tree  that  had  once  been  Fradubio.— “ Faery 
Queen,”  I.  ii.  30. 

t The  story  of  Idomeneus,  according  to  the  old  annotators  upon 
Virgil,  has  a curious  similarity  to  that  of  Jephthah.  He  had 
vowed  that  if  he  escaped  from  a storm  at  sea,  he  would  offer  in 
sacrifice  the  first  thing  that  met  him  on  landing.  It  was  his  son 
A plague  followed,  and  his  subjects  expelled  him. 


AENEAS  CONTINUES  IIIS  NARRATIVE . 61 


their  forefather  Dardanus.  Then  Anchises  too  remem- 
bered that  such  had  been  the  frequent  warning  of  Cas- 
sandra— the  prophetess  to  whom  none  would  listen. 
They  re-embarked  accordingly.  After  a storm  of  three 
days  and  three  nights,  when  no  pilot  could  keep  the 
course,  they  were  cast  upon  the  islands  of  the  Harpies  * 
— the  monster  sisters,  half  women  and  half  birds,  foul 
and  loathsome,  who  are  hateful  to  gods  and  men.  With 
them  they  had  to  do  battle  for  the  meal  which  they  had 
spread;  and  one  of  those  hags,  in  her  wrath,  prophesied 
that  before  they  reached  their  promised  Hesperia  they 
should  be  forced  “ to  eat  their  tables.  ” 

The  description  of  the  ensuing  voyage,  in  Mr.  Con- 
ington’s  tasteful  translation,  reads  like  a passage  from 
the  “ Lord  of  the  Isles,”  yet  presents  a fair  equivalent, 
especially  in  the  last  fine  touch,  to  the  Latin  original; 


“ The  south  wind  freshens  in  the  sail; 
We  hurry  o’er  the  tide. 

Where’er  the  helmsman  and  the  gale 
Conspire  our  course  to  guide; 

Now  rises  o’er  the  foamy  flood 
Zacynthos,  with  its  crown  of  wood, 


* There  is  a fine  description  of  these  hags  in  Morris’s  “ Jason,” 
where  the  voyagers 

“ Beheld  the  daughters  of  the  Earth  and  Sea, 

The  dreadful  Snatchers,  who  like  women  were 
Down  to  the  breast,  with  scanty  close  black  hair 
About  their  heads,  and  dim  eyes  ringed  with  red, 

And  bestial  mouths  set  round  with  lips  of  lead. 

Bnt  from  their  gnarled  necks  there  ’gan  to  spring 
Half  hair,  half  feathers,  and  a sweeping  wing 
Grew  out  instead  of  arm  on  either  side, 

And  thick  plumes  underneath  the  breast  did  hide 
The  place  where  joined  the  fearful  natures  twain.” 


62 


VIRGIL. 


Dulichium,  SamS,  Neritos, 

Whose  rocky  sides  the  waves  emboss; 

The  crags  of  Ithaca  we  flee, 

Laertes’  rugged  sovereignty; 

Nor  in  our  flight  forget  to  curse 
The  land  that  was  Ulysses’  nurse.” 

They  landed  on  the  coast  of  Leucadia,  at  Actium — the 
scene,  be  it  remembered,  of  Augustus’s  great  naval  vic- 
tory over  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  Here,  the  Trojan 
chief  takes  care  to  say,  he  refreshed  his  weary  crew  with 
rest,  and  celebrated  national  games.  Nay,  he  hung  up 
there,  fugitive  as  he  was,  a trophy  of  defiance — a shield 
which  he  had  taken  from  a Greek  hero,  and  inscribed 
upon  it,  “ The  spoil  of  iEneas  from  the  conquering 
Argives.”  So  speaks  the  poet;  his  Roman  audience 
would  recognize  the  Actian  games,  celebrated  there 
every  fifth  year  by  order  of  Augustus  in  honor  of  his 
great  victory ; and  iEneas’s  trophy  is  not  so  out  of  place 
as  it  might  seem. 

At  Buthrotus,  in  Epirus,  the  wanderers  had  met  with 
old  friends.  Andromache  is  settled  there,  now  the  wife 
of  Helenus,  who,  by  a strange  vicissitude,  has  become 
the  successor  of  Neoptolemus  in  his  Greek  province. 
There  is  little  of  what  we  call  sentiment  in  these 
“heroic”  times,  especially  as  concerns  “woman  and 
her  master.”  It  grates  upon  the  feelings  of  the  reader 
who  has  in  mind  the  pathetic  scene  between  Hector  and 
liis  wife  in  the  Iliad  of  Homer,  to  be  told  here  by  the 
poet — told,  too,  as  an  ordinary  incident,  as  in  fact  it 
was — that  Andromache  had  become  the  property  of  the 
conqueror  Neoptolemus,  and  that  he,  bent  upon  a mar- 
riage with  Hermione,  daughter  of  Helen  and  Menelaus, 
had  handed  over  his  Trojan  wife — “ Hector’s  Andro. 
mache,”  as  she  still  pathetically  calls  herself — to  her 
fellow-captive  Helenus,  Hector’s  brother.  She  tells  her 


AENEAS  CONTINUES  IIIS  NARRATIVE.  63 


own  sad  story,  not  without  some  sense  of  its  wretched- 
ness— 

“ Ay— I am  living;  living  still 
Through  all  extremity  of  ill.” 

And  she  envies  the  fate  of  Polyxena,  her  sister-in-law, 
slain  on  the  tomb  of  Achilles.  Still,  she  has  accepted 
her  lot — the  lot  of  so  many  women  in  her  day.  And 
Helenus,  her  present  lord,  is  (if  that  be  any  consolation) 
a sort  of  king;  for  Orestes  has  killed  Neoptolemus,  and 
Helenus  has  in  some  way  succeeded  him,  and  built  a 
new  “Pergamus”  in  Greece.  So  that  here,  too,  the  poet 
would  tell  'us,  Troy  has  conquered  her  conquerors — a 
son  of  Priam  reigns  in  the  territory  of  Achilles.  But 
the  impression  made  upon  an  English  mind  as  to  An- 
dromache’s fate  is,  after  all,  that  of  degradation,  and 
we  gladly  turn  from  the  page  which  relates  it. 

Helenus,  like  her  sister  Cassandra,  has  the  gift  of 
prophecy;  he  had  been  the  great  authority  on-  all  such 
matters  to  his  countrymen  during  the  siege.  He  now 
read  the  omens  for  iEneas,  at  his  request;  all  were 
favorable.  The  wanderers  should  reach  the  promised 
Hesperia;  but  that  western  land  -was  further  off  than 
they  thought,  and  their  voyage  would  prove  long  and 
weary.  When  they  reached  it,  they  should  find  under 
a holm-oak  a white  sow  with  a litter  of  thirty  young 
ones:  there  the  new  town  was  to  be  built— the  “ Alba 
Longa”  which  has  already  been  forenamed  in  Jupiter’s 
promise  to  Yenus.  Helenus  dismissed  them  with  good 
wishes  and  ample  presents;  Andromache  making  spe- 
cial gifts  to  the  boy  Ascanius,  whose  age  and  features 
remind  the  mother  of  her  own  lost  Astyanax.  .Eneas’s 
words  of  farewell  are  these: 

“ Live  and  be  blest!  ’tis  sweet  to  feel 
Fate’s  book  is  closed  and  under  seal. 


64 


VIRGIL . 


For  us,  alas ! that  volume  stern 
Has  many  another  page  to  turn. 

Yours  is  a rest  assured:  no  more 
Of  ocean  wave  to  task  the  oar; 

No  far  Ausonia  to  pursue, 

Still  flying,  flying  from  the  view.” 

They  set  sail  from  this  friendly  shore,  and  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  caught  their  first  sight  of  the  shores  of 
Italy.  But  though  they  landed  and  offered  sacrifice  to 
Juno,  as  Helenus  had  bid  them  do,  they  knew  that  this 
was  not  the  spot  on  which  they  were  to  settle,  and  soon 
put  to  sea  again.  They  passed  the  bay  of  Tarentum, 
escaping  the  dangers  of  Charybdis,  and  landed  under 
iEtna,  on  the  shore  where  dwell  the  Cyclops — the  one- 
eyed  race  of  giants,  who,  according  to  one  legend,  labor 
in  their  underground  forges  for  Vulcan,  the  divine 
smith.  Here  the  poet  introduces  us  to  a direct  remi- 
niscence of  the  wanderings  of  Ulysses.  He  adopts  the 
whole  of  Homer’s  story — the  visit  of  the  Greek  chief 
and  his  comrades  to  the  cave  of  the  giant  Polyphemus, 
his  cannibal  meal,  and  the  vengeance  which  Ulysses 
took  upon  him  b}r  burning  out  his  eye.*  iEneas  relates 
how  he  met  there  with  one  of  Ulysses’  crew,  who  by 
some  mischance  had  been  left  behind,  and  who  had 
hid  himself  three  months  (so  close  is  the  date  of  the  two 
voyages)  from  the  clutches  of  Polyphemus  and  his 
fellow-Cyclops.  They  took  the  wretched  fugitive  on 
board,  and  put  to  sea  again  just  in  time  to  escape  the 
blind  monster,  who  waded  into  the  sea  after  them  at  the 
sound  of  the  oars.  They  skirted  the  coast  of  Sicily,  and 
at  Drepanum  the  chief  had  buried  his  father  Anchises. 
It  was  on  casting  off  from  Sicily  that  he  had  been 
driven  by  the  storm  on  this  unknown  coast  of  Libya,  on 


* See  Homer’s  Odyssey,  p.  69. 


DIDO . 


65 


the  spot  soon  to  be  famous  enough  as  the  site  of  Car- 
thage. 

“ So  king  iEneas  told  his  tale, 

While  all  beside  were  still — 

Rehearsed  the  fortunes  of  his  sail, 

And  Fate’s  mysterious  will: 

Then  to  its  close  his  legend  brought, 

And  gladly  took  the  rest  he  sought.’* 


Chapter  TV. 

DIDO. 

The  Carthaginian  queen  has  been  an  eager  listener  to 
iEneas’s  story.  She  is  love- stricken — suddenly,  and 
irremediably.  The  poet  has  thought  it  necessary  to 
explain  the  fact  by  the  introduction  of  the  god  of  love 
himself,  whom,  in  the  shape  of  the  young  Ascanius,  she 
has  been  nursing  on  her  bosom.  The  passion  itself  is 
looked  upon  by  the  poet — and  as  we  must  suppose  by 
his  audience — as  such  a palpable  weakness,  that  even  in 
a woman  (and  it  is  to  women  almost  exclusively,  in  an- 
cient classical  fiction,  that  these  sudden  affections  are 
attributed)  it  was  thought  necessary  to  account  for  it 
by  the  intervention  of  some  more  than  human  influence. 
Either  human  nature  has  developed,  or  our  modern 
poets  understand  its  workings  better.  Shakespeare 
makes  the  angry  Brabantio  accuse  the  Moor  of  having 
stolen  his  daughter’s  love 

“ By  spells  an  1 medicines  bought  of  mountebanks;” 

but  Othello  himself  has  a far  simpler  and  more  natural 
explanation  of  the  matter — 

“ She  loved  me  for  the  dangers  I had  passed;— 

This  only  is  the  witchcraft  I have  used.” 


66 


VIRGIL . 


So  it  has  been  with  Dido.  But  she  is  terribly  ashamed 
of  her  own  feelings.  She  finds  relief  in  disclosing  them 
to  a very  natural  confidant — her  sister  Anna.  She 
confesses  her  weakness,  but  avows  at  the  same  time  a 
determination  not  to  yield  to  it.  The  stranger  has  in- 
terested her  deeply,  after  a fashion  which  has  not 
touched  her  since  the  death  of  her  husband  Sicligeus. 

“ Were  not  my  purpose  fixed  as  fate 
With  none  in  wedlock’s  band  to  mate,— 

Were  bed  and  bridal  aught  but  pain, — 

Perchance  I had  been  weak  again.” 

But  her  sister— suiting  her  counsels,  as  all  confidants 
are  apt  to  do,  to  the  secret  wishes  rather  than  to  the 
professions  of  Dido — encourages  the  passion.  Perpetual 
widowhood  has  a romantic  sound,  but  is  not,  in  Anna’s 
opinion,  a desirable  estate.  Besides,  in  this  newly- 
planted  colony,  surrounded  as  they  are  by  fierce  African 
tribes,  an  alliance  with  these  Trojan  strangers  will  be  a 
tower  of  strength.  The  stout  arm  of  such  a husband  as 
-ZEneas  is  much  needed  by  a widowed  queen.  His  visit 
— so  Anna  thinks — is  nothing  less  than  providential — 

“ ’Twas  Heaven  and  Juno’s  grace  that  bore, 

I ween,  these  Trojans  to  our  shore.” 

By  all  means  let  them  detain  their  illustrious  visitor 
with  them  as  long  as  possible — his  ships  require  re- 
fitting and  his  crews  refreshment — and  the  result  will 
not  be  doubtful. 

The  advice  suits  with  the  queen’s  new  mood  too 
well  to  be  rejected.  Together  the  sisters  offer  pious 
sacrifices  to  the  gods — to  Juno  especially,  as  the 
goddess  of  marriage — to  give  their  sanction  to  the 


DIDO. 


67 


lioped-for  alliance.  The  restless  feelings  of  the  en- 
amoured woman  are  described  in  one  of  the  finest  and 
most  admired  passages  of  the  poem ; 

“ E’en  as  a deer  whom  from  afar 
A swain,  in  desultory  war, 

Where  Cretan  woods  are  thick, 

Has  pierced,  as  ’mid  the  trees  she  lies, 

And,  all  unknowing  of  his  prize, 

Has  left  the  dart  to  stick: 

She  wanders  lawn  and  forest  o’er, 

While  the  fell  shaft  still  drinks  her  gore.* 

Now  through  the  city  of  her  pride 
She  walks,  iEneas  at  her  Side, 

Displays  the  stores  of  Sidon’s  trade, 

And  stately  homes  already  made: 

Begins,  but  stops  she  knows  not  why. 

And  lets  the  imperfect  utterance  die. 

Now,  as  the  sunlight  wears  away. 

She  seeks  the  feast  of  yesterday. 

Inquires  once  more  of  Troy’s  eclipse. 

And  hangs  once  more  upon  his  lips; 

Then,  when  the  guests  have  gone  their  ways. 

And  the  dim  moon  withdraws  her  rays. 

And  setting  stars  to  slumber  call, 

Alone  she  mourns  in  that  lone  hall, 

Clasps  the  dear  couch  where  late  he  lay, 

Beholds  him,  hears  him  far  away; 

Or  keeps  Ascanius  on  her  knees, 

And  in  the  son  the  father  sees. 

Might  she  but  steal  one  peaceful  hour 
From  love’s  ungovernable  power. 

No  more  the  growing  towers  arise, 

No  more  in  martial  exercise 

The  youth  engage,  make  strong  the  fort, 

Or  shape  the  basin  to  a port.” 


* “To  the  which  place  a poor  sequestered  stag, 

That  from  the  hunter’s  aim  had  ta’en  a hurt, 

Had  come  to  languish.” 

—Shakespeare,  “ As  you  Like  it,”  ii.  1. 


68 


VIRGIL. 


The  powers  of  Olympus  here  come  again  upon  the 
scene.  Juno  sees,  not  without  a secret  satisfaction, 
the  prospect  of  an  entanglement  between  iEneas  and 
Dido,  which  may  detain  these  hated  Trojans  in  Africa, 
and  so  prevent  their  settlement  and  dominion  in  Italy. 
So  Carthage,  and  not  the  Rome  of  the  future,  may  yet 
be  the  mistress  of  the  world.  She  addresses  herself  at 
once  to  the  goddess  of  love — not  without  a sneer  at 
the  success  of  her  snares  in  poor  Dido’s  case ; a sorry 
triumph  it  is  indeed — two  divinities  pitted  against  a 
weak  woman!  But  come — suppose  in  this  matter 
they  agree  to  act  in  concert;  let  there  he  a union  be- 
tween the  two  nations,  and  let  Carthage  be  the  seat 
of  their  joint  power;  its  citizens  shall  pay  equal  hon- 
ors to  the  queen  of  heaven  and  the  queen  of  love. 
Venus  understands  perfectly  well  that  Juno’s  motive 
is  at  any  cost  to  prevent  the  foundation  of  Rome;  but, 
having  a clearer  vision  (we  must  presume)  than  liei 
great  rival  of  the  probable  results,  she  agrees  to  the 
terms.  There  is  to  be  a hunting-party  on  the  morrow, 
and  Juno  will  take  care  that  opportunity  shall  be  given 
for  the  furtherance  of  Dido’s  passion.  The  royal  hunt 
is  again  a striking  picture,  almost  mediaeval  in  ils  rich 
coloring: 

“ The  morn  meantime  from  ocean  rose: 

Forth  from  the  gates  with  daybreak  goes 
The  silvan  regiment: 

Thin  nets  are  there,  and  spears  of  steel. 

And  there  Massylian  riders  wheel, 

And  dogs  of  keenest  scent. 

Before  the  chamber  of  her  state 
Long  time  the  Punic  nobles  wait 
The  appearing  of  the  que^en: 

With  gold  and  purple  housings  fit 
Stands  her  proud  steed,  and  champs  the  bit 
His  foaming  jaws  between. 


DIDO. 


At  length  with  long  attendant  train 
She  conies:  her  scarf  of  Tyrian  grain,* 
With  broidered  border  decked: 

Of  gold  her  quiver:  knots  of  gold 
Confine  her  hair:  her  vesture’s  fold 
By  golden  clasp  is  checked. 

The  Trojans  and  lulus  gay 
In  glad  procession  take  their  way. 
iEneas,  comeliest  of  the  throng, 

Joins  their  proud  ranks,  and  steps  along, 
As  when  from  Lycia’s  wintry  airs 
To  Delos’  isle  Apollo  fares; 

The  Agathyrsian,  Dryop,  Crete, 

In  dances  round  his  altar  meet: 

He  on  the  heights  of  Cynthus  moves, 
And  binds  his  hair’s  loose  flow 
With  cincture  of  the  leaf  he  loves: 

Behind  him  sounds  his  bow; — 

So  firm  iEneas’  graceful  tread, 

So  bright  the  glories  round  his  head. 


But  young  Ascanius  on  his  steed 
With  boyish  ardor  glows, 

And  now  in  ecstasy  of  speed 
He  passes  these,  now  those: 

For  him  too  peaceful  and  too  tame 
The  pleasure  of  the  hunted  game: 

He  longs  to  see  the  foaming  boar, 

Or  hear  the  tawny  I on’s  roar. 

Meantime,  loud  thunder-peals  resound, 
And  hail  and  rain  the  sky  confound: 

And  Tyrian  chiefs  and  sons  of  Troy, 

And  Venus’  care,  the  princely  boy, 

Seek  each  his  shelter,  winged  with  dread, 
While  torrents  from  the  hills  run  red. 


* This  was  the  dye  procured  from  the  shell-fish  called  murex— 
especially  costly,  because  each  fish  contained  but  a single  drop 
of  the  precious  tincture. 


70 


VIRGIL . 


Driven  haply  to  the  same  retreat, 

The  Dardan  chief  and  Dido  meet. 

Then  Earth,  the  venerable  dame, 

And  Juno,  give  the  sign: 

Heaven  lightens  with  attesting  flame, 

And  bids  its  torches  shine, 

And  from  the  summit  of  the  peak 
The  nymphs  shrill  out  the  nuptial  shriek. 

That  day  she  first  began  to  die; 

That  day  first  taught  her  to  defy 
The  public  tongue,  the  public  eye. 

No  secret  love  is  Dido’s  aim: 

She  calls  it  marriage  now ; such  name 
She  chooses  to  conceal  her  shame.” 

A rejected  suitor  of  the  Carthaginian  queen, — lar- 
bas,  king  of  Gsetulia, — hears  the  news  amongst  the 
rest.  He  is  a reputed  son  of  Jupiter;  and  now,  furious 
at  seeing  this  wanderer  from  Troy — “this  second 
Paris,  ” as  he  calls  him — preferred  to  himself,  he  ap- 
peals for  vengeance  to  his  Olympian  parent.  The 
appeal  is  heard,  and  Mercury  is  despatched  to  remind 
iEneas  of  his  high  destinies,  which  he  is  forgetting  in 
this  dalliance  at  Carthage.  If  he  has  lost  all  ambition 
for  himself,  let  him  at  least  remember  the  rights  of  his 
son  Ascanius,  which  he  is  thus  sacrificing  to  the  in- 
dulgence of  his  own  wayward  passions.  The  immortal 
messenger  finds  the  Trojan  chief  busied  in  planning  the 
extension  of  the  walls  and  streets  of  the  new  city  which 
he  has  already  adopted  as  his  home.  He  delivers  his 
message  briefly  and  emphatically,  and  vanishes.  Thus 
recalled  to  a full  sense  of  his  false  position,  HSneas  is 
at  first  horror-struck  and  confounded.  How  to  dis- 
obey the  direct  commands  of  Heaven,  and  run  counter 
to  the  oracles  of  fate;  how,  on  the  other  hand,  to  b^eak 
his  faith  with  Dido,  and  ungratefully  betray  the  too 


DIDO. 


71 


confiding  love  of  bis  hostess  and  benefactress;  how 
even  to  venture  to  hint  to  her  a word  of  parting,  and 
how  to  escape  the  probable  vengeance  of  the  Cartha- 
ginian people; — all  these  considerations  crowd  into  his 
mind,  and  perplex  him  terribly.  On  the  main  point, 
however,  his  resolution  is  soon  taken.  He  will  obey 
the  mandate  of  the  gods,  at  any  cost.  He  summons 
the  most  trusted  of  his  comrades,  and  bids  them  make 
secret  preparations  to  set  sail  once  more  in  quest  of 
their  home  in  Italy.  He  promises  himself  that  he  will 
either  find  or  make  some  opportunity  of  breaking  the 
news  of  his  departure  to  Dido. 

This  is  the  turning-point  of  the  poem ; and  here  it 
is  that  the  interest  to  a modern  reader,  so  far  as  the 
mere  plot  of  the  story  is  concerned,  is  sadly  marred  by 
the  way  in  which  the  hero  thus  cuts  himself  off  from 
all  our  sympathies.  His  most  ingenious  apologists — 
and  he  has  found  many — appeal  to  us  in  vain.  Upon 
the  audience  or  the  readers  of  his  own  time,  no  doubt, 
the  effect  might  have  been  different.  To  the  critics 
of  Augustus’s  court,  love — or  what  they  understood  by 
it — was  a mere  weakness  in  the  hero.  The  call  which 
Heaven  had  conveyed  to  him  was  to  found  the  great 
empire  of  the  future;  and  because  he  obeys  the  call 
at  the  expense  of  his  tenderest  feelings,  the  poet  gives 
him  always  his  distinctive  epithet — the  “pious’* 
iEneas.  The  word  “ pious,”  it  must  be  remembered, 
implies  in  the  Latin  the  recognition  of  all  duties  to 
one’s  country  and  one’s  parents,  as  well  as  to  the  gods. 
And  in  all  these  senses  ^Eneas  would  deserve  it.  But 
to  an  English  mind,  the  “ piety”  which  pleads  the  will 
of  Heaven  as  an  excuse  for  treachery  to  a woman,  only 
adds  a deeper  hue  of  infamy  to  the  transaction.  It 
“Doth  make  the  fault  the  worse  by  the  excuse.” 


72 


VIRGIL. 


But  our  story  must  not  wait  for  us  to  discuss  too 
curiously  the  morals  of  the  hero.  ^Eneas  lias  thought 
to  make  his  preparations  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
queen — while  she 

“ Still  dreams  her  happy  dream,  nor  thinks 
That  aught  can  break  those  golden  links.” 

But,  as  the  poet  goes  on  to  say,  “Who  can  cheat  the 
eyes  of  love?”  Dido  soon  learns  his  change  of  pur- 
pose, and  taxes  him  openly  with  his  baseness  and 
ingratitude.  The  whole  of  this  fourth  book  of  the 
^Eneid — “ The  Passion  of  Dido,”  as  it  has  been  called 
— is  of  a very  high  order  of  tragic  pathos.  The  queen 
is  by  turns  furious  and  pathetic;  now  she  hurls  mena- 
ces and  curses  against  her  false  lover,  now  she  conde- 
scends to  pitiable  entreaty.  The  Trojan  chief’s  de- 
fence, such  as  it  is,  is  that  he  had  never  meant  to  stay. 
He  is  bound,  the  pilgrim  of  Heaven,  for  Latium.  His 
father  Ancliises  is  warning  him  continually  in  the 
visions  of  the  night  not  to  linger  here:  and  now  the 
messenger  of  the  gods  in  person  has  come  to  chide  this 
fond  delay. 

The  grand  storm  of  wrath  in  which  the  injured 
queen  bursts  upon  him  in  reply  has  severely  taxed  the 
powers  of  all  Virgil’s  English  translators.  They  seem 
to  have  felt  themselves  no  more  of  a match  for  “the 
fury  of  a woman  scorned  ” than  iEneas  was.  Cer- 
tainly they  all  fail,  more  or  less,  to  give  the  fire  and 
bitterness  of  the  original.  The  heroics  of  Dryden  suit 
it  better,  perhaps,  than  any  other  measure : 

“False  as  thou  art,  and  more  than  false,  forsworn  I 
Not  sprung  from  noble  blood,  nor  goddess-born, 

Butt  hewn  from  hardened  entrails  of  a rock, 

And  rough  Hyrcanian  tigers  gave  thee  suck  1 


DIDO. 


73 


Why  should  I fawn?  what  have  I worse  to  fear? 

Did  he  once  look,  or  lend  a listening  ear, 

Sigh  when  I sobbed,  or  shed  one  kindly  tear? 

All  symptoms  of  a base  ungrateful  mind— 

So  foul,  that,  which  is  worse,  ’tis  hard  to  find. 

Of  man’s  injustice  why  should  I complain? 

The  gods,  and  Jove  himself,  behold  in  vain 
Triumphant  treason,  yet  no  thunder  flies; 

Nor  Juno  views  my  wrongs  with  equal  eyes: 
Faithless  is  earth,  and  faithless  are  the  skies! 
Justice  is  fled,  and  truth  is  now  no  more. 

I saved  the  shipwrecked  exile  on  my  shore: 

With  needful  food  his  hungry  Trojans  fed: 

I took  the  traitor  to  my  throne  and  bed: 

Fool  that  I was!— ’tis  little  to  repeat 

The  rest— I stored  and  rigged  his  ruined  fleet. 

I rave,  I rave ! A god’s  command  he  pleads  1 
And  makes  heaven  accessory  to  his  deeds. 

Now  Lycian  lots ; and  now  the  Delian  god ; 

Now  Hermes  is  employed  from  Jove’s  abode, 

To  warn  him  hence ; as  if  the  peaceful  state 
Of  heavenly  powers  were  touched  with  human  fate ! 
But  go:  thy  flight  no  longer  I detain— 

Go  seek  thy  promised  kingdom  through  the  main  J 
Yet,  if  the  heavens  will  hear  my  pious  vow, 

The  faithless  waves,  not  half  so  false  as  thou, 

Or  secret  sands,  shall  sepulchres  afford 
To  thy  proud  vessels  and  their  perjured  lord. 

Then  shalt  thou  call  on  injured  Dido’s  name: 

Dido  shall  come,  in  a black  sulph’ry  flame, 

When  death  has  once  dissolved  her  mortal  frame, 
Shall  smile  to  see  the  traitor  vainly  weep ; 

Her  angry  ghost,  arising  frbm  the  deep, 

Shall  haunt  thee  waking,  and  disturb  thy  sleep. 

At  least  my  shade  thy  punishment  shall  know; 

And  fame  shall  spread  the  pleasing  news  below.” 


But  in  this  passage,  if  nowhere  else,  a French 
translator  has  surpassed  all  his  English  rivals.  Pos- 
sibly the  fervid  passion  of  the  scene,  worked  up  as  it 


VIRGIL. 


74 

is  almost  to  exaggeration,  is  more  akin  to  the  genius 
of  the  French  language.* 


* Delille’s  fine  translation  of  this  passage  is  so  little  known  to 
English  readers  that  it  may  well  find  room  in  a note: 

“Non— tu  n’es  point  le  fils  de  la  m§re  d’Amour; 

Au  sang  de  Dardanus  tu  ne  dois  point  le  jour; 

Nimpute  point  aux  dieux  la  naissance  dun  traitre— 

Non,  du  sang  d’heros  un  monstre  n’a  pu  naitre; 

Non. — Le  Caucase  affreux,  t’engendrant  en  fureur, 

De  ses  plus  durs  rochers  fit  ton  barbare  coeur, 

Et  du  tigre  inhumain  la  compagne  sauvage, 

Cruel ! avec  son  lait  t’a  fait  sucer  sa  rage. 

Car  enfin  qui  m’arrete?  Apr&s  ses  durs  refus, 

Apres  tant  de  mepris,  qu’attendrais-je  de  plus? 

S’est-il  laiss^  flechir  a mes  cris  douloureux? 

A-t-ii  au  moins  daigne  tourner  vers  moi  les  yeux? 
Prosternee  a ses  pieds,  plaintive,  suppliante, 

N'a-t-il  pas  d’un  front  calme  ecout£  son  amante? 

Sans  secours,  sans  asile,  errant  de  mers  en  mers, 

Par  les  flots  en  courroux  jete  dans  nos  deserts, 

Je  l’ai  regu,  l’ingrat!  des  fureurs  de  l’orage 
J’ai  sauve  ses  sujets,  ses  vaisseaux  de  naufrage, 

Je  lui  donne  mon  coeur,  mon  empire,  ma  main: 

O fureur,  et  voila  que  ce  monstre  inhumain 
Ose  imputer  aux  dieux  son  horrible  parjure, 

Me  parle  et  d’ Apollon,  et  d’oracle,  et  d’augure! 

Pour  presser  son  depart,  l’ambassadeur  des  dieux 
Est  descendu  vers  lui  de  la  voute  des  cieux: 

Dignes  soins,  en  effet,  de  ces  maitres  du  monde! 

En  effet,  sa  grandeur  trouble  leur  paix  profonde! 

— C’en  est  assez;  va,  pars;  je  ne  te  retiens  pas; 

Va  chercher  loin  de  moi  je  ne  sais  quels  etats: 

S’il  est  encore  an  dieu  redoubtable  aux  ingrats, 

J’espere  que  bientot,  pour  prix  d’un  si  grand  crime, 

Bris£  contre  un  ecueil,  plong^  dans  un  abime, 

Tu  pairas  mes  malheurs,  perfide  1 et  de  Didon 
Ta  voix,  ta  voix  plaintive  invoquera  le  mon.’’ 


DIDO 


75 


We  cannot,  however,  do  better  than  return  to  Mr. 
Conington’s  version  for  the  sequel : 

“ Her  speech  half  done,  she  breaks  away, 

And  sickening  shuns  the  light  of  day, 

And  tears  her  from  his  gaze ; 

While  he,  with  thousand  things  to  say. 

Still  falters  and  delays: 

Her  servants  lift  the  sinking  fair, 

And  to  her  marble  chamber  bear.” 

The  Trojans  prepare  to  depart;  but  the  enamoured 
queen  makes  one  more  despairing  effort  to  detain  her 
faithless  guest.  She  sends  her  sister  to  ask  at  least 
for  some  short  space  of  delay — until  she  shall  have 
schooled  herself  to  bear  his  loss.  iEneas  is  obdurate 
in  his  “piety.”  Then  her  last  resolve  is  taken.  She 
cheats  her  sister  into  the  belief  that  she  has  found 
some  spells  potent  enough  to  restrain  the  truant  lover. 
Part  of  the  charm  is  that  his  armor,  and  all  that  had 
belonged  to  him  while  in  her  company,  must  be  com 
sumed  by  fire.  So  a lofty  pile  is  built  in  the  palace- 
court;  but  it  is  to  be  the  funeral  pile  of  Dido.  As  she 
looks  forth  from  the  turret  of  liar  palace  at  daybreak, 
she  sees  the  ships  of  .Eneas  already  far  in  the  offing; 
for,  warned  again  by  Mercury  that  there  will  be  risk 
of  his  departure  being  prevented  by  force  if  he  delays, 
he  has  already  set  sail  under  cover  of  the  night.  For 
a moment  the  queen  thinks  of  ordering  her  seamen  to 
give  chase;  but  it  is  a mere  passing  phase  of  her 
despair.  She  contents  herself  with  imprecating  an 
eternal  enmity  between  liis  race  and  hers — fulfilled,  as 
the  poet  means  us  to  bear  in  mind,  in  the  long  and 
bloody  wars  between  Rome  and  Carthage. 

“And,  Tyrians,  you  through  time  to  come 
His  seed  with  deathless  hatred  chase: 


VIEGIL. 


76 


Be  that  your  gift  to  Dido’s  tomb: 

No  love,  no  league  ’twixt  race  and  race. 

Rise  from  my  ashes,  scourge  of  crime, 

Born  to  pursue  the  Dardan  horde 
To-day,  to  morrow,  through  all  time, 

Oft  as  our  hands  can  wield  the  sword: 

Fight  shore  with  shore,  fight  sea  with  sea, 

Fight  all  that  are,  or  e’er  shall  be  1” 

With  a master’s  hand  the  poet  enhances  the  glories 
of  his  country  by  this  prophetic  introduction  of  the 
terrible  Hannibal.  The  peaceful  empire  of  Caesar, 
before  whom  East  and  West  bow,  is  thrown  into  the 
broadest  light  by  reference  to  those  early  days  when 
Borne  lay  almost  at  the  mercy  of  her  implacable  enemy. 

“ Then,  maddening  over  crime,  the  queen 

With  bloodshot  eyes,  and  sanguine  streaks 
Fresh  painted  on  her  quivering  cheeks, 

And  wanning  o’er  with  death  foreseen, 

Through  inner  portals  wildly  fares, 

Scales  the  high  pile  with  swift  ascent, 

Takes  up  the  Dardan  sword  and  bares — 

Sad  gift,  for  different  uses  meant. 

She  eyed  the  robes  with  wistful  look, 

And  pausing,  thought  awhile  and  wept;  * 

Then  pressed  her  to  the  couch  and  spoke 
Her  last  good  night  or  e’er  she  slept. 

‘ Sweet  relics  of  a time  of  love, 

When  fate  and  heaven  were  kind, 

Receive  my  life-blood,  and  remove 
These  torments  of  the  mind. 

My  life  is  lived,  and  I have  played 
The  part  that  Fortune  gave, 

And  now  I pass,  a queenly  shade. 

Majestic  to  the  grave. 

A glorious  city  I have  built, 

Have  seen  my  walls  ascend; 

Chastised  for  blood  of  husband  spilt, 

A brother,  yet  no  friend : 

Blest  lot!  yet  lacked  one  blessing  more, 

That  Troy  had  never  touched  my  shore ! ’ ” 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


77 


So  slie  mounts  the  funeral  pile,  and  stabs  herself 
with  the  Trojan’s  sword,  her  sister  Anna  coming  upon 
the  scene  only  in  time  to  receive  the  parting  breath. 


Chapter  V. 

THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 

Far  off  at  sea,  iEneas  and  his  crew  see  the  flames  go 
up  from  Dido’s  palace. 

11  What  cause  has  lit  so  fierce  a flame 
They  know  not ; but  the  pangs  of  shame 
From  great  love  wronged,  and  what  despair 
Will  make  a baffled  woman  dare, — 

All  this  they  know ; and  knowing  tread 
The  paths  of  presage  vague  and  dread.” 

Not  yet  is  their  course  clear  for  Italy.  A storm 
comeson,  and  they  make  for  refuge  towards  the  friendly 
coast  of  Sicily,  and  run  their  vessels  into  a sheltered 
bay  under  Mount  Eryx.  Their  return  is  gladly  wel- 
comed by  their  late  host,  Acestes,  who  receives  the 
wanderers,  as  before,  with  princely  hospitality,  still 
mindful  of  his  own  Trojan  blood.  It  chances  that  the 
morrow  is  the  anniversary  of  the  burial  of  Anchises; 
and  iEneas,  summoning  an  open-air  council  of  his 
crews,  announces  to  them  his  intention  of  commemo- 
rating his  father  by  a solemn  public  sacrifice.  It  is  a 
day  which — wherever  his  lot  may  be  hereafter  cast — he 
will  ever  keep  holy;  and  not  without  some  providen- 
tial guidance,  as  he  deems,  has  this  opportunity  been 
afforded  him,  by  bis  being  driven  back  to  Sicily,  of 
celebrating  it  on  friendly  soil  under  the  auspices  of  his 
kinsman.  There  shall  be  nine  days  of  sacrifice  and 


78 


VIRGIL. 


prayer;  then  shall  follow  funeral  games,  with  prizes  at 
his  own  cost. 

The  sacrificial  oxen  are  duly  slain,  and  the  libations 
poured  at  the  tomb  of  Ancliises;  the  bowls  of  new  milk, 
of  wine,  and  of  blood,  and  the  fresh  spring  flowers, 
which  were  reckoned  acceptable  offerings  to  the  dead. 
Then  iEneas  lifts  his  voice  in  prayer  to  the  shade  of 
the  hero,  and  a startling  omen  follows  the  invocation. 
A serpent,  dappled  with  green  and  gold,  glides  out  of 
the  tomb,  tastes  of  the  offerings,  and  disappears  again. 
iEneas  sees  in  the  creature  the  tutelary  genius  of  the 
spot,  or,  it  may  be,  the  special  attendant  of  his  father’s 
shade.  In  either  case,  he  accepts  its  appearance  as  a 
good  omen,  and  joyfully  redoubles  his  devotions. 

In  the  funeral  games  which  follow,  the  Roman  poet 
no  doubt  had  two  models  in  his  mind.  He  was  ambi- 
tious to  reproduce,  or  perhaps  to  rival,  in  Roman  song, 
for  an  audience  of  his  countrymen,  the  grand  descrip- 
tion which  his  great  master  Homer  had  given  of  the 
games  which  Achilles  celebrates  in  honor  of  the  dead 
Patroclus.  He  wished  also,  there  can  be  little  doubt, 
to  pay  a poet’s  best  compliment  to  his  imperial  patron, 
and  to  weave  into  his  song,  with  such  license  of  embel- 
lishment as  is  allowed  to  all  poets,  a record  of  those 
funeral  games  which  Augustus  had  instituted  in  re- 
membrance of  his  uncle,  the  great  Dictator  Julius. 
But  Virgil  is  here  very  far  from  being  a mere  copyist 
from  Homer.  In  lieu  of  the  chariot-race,  the  great 
feature  in  the  games  of  the  Iliad,  he  has  given  us  a 
galley-race,  the  incidents  of  which  are  quite  as  excit- 
ing, and  to  our  modern  comprehensions  more  thoroughly 
intelligible. 

The  day  fixed  for  the  great  spectacle  has  arrived, 
and  the  Sicilians  from  far  and  near  flock  to  it,  some  to 


TEE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


79 


take  part  in  the  games,  and  all  to  see.  First  of  the 
various  contests  comes  the  galley-race,  for  which  four 
of  the  fastest  vessels  in  the  fleet  have  entered — the 
Shark,  the  Centaur,  the  Cliimsera,  and  the  Scylla;  each 
displaying,  no  doubt,  as  its  figure-head,  a represeata- 
tion  of  the  monster  whose  name  it  bore.  Their  captains 
were  men  well  known.  Humoring  a genealogical  fancy 
of  his  Roman  countrymen  for  tracing  their  descent  to 
some  one  of  the  old  Trojan  colonists, — much  after  the 
fashion  of  English  houses  who  try  to  find  an  ancestor 
on  the  Roll  of  Battle  Abbey, — the  poet  tells  us  that 
three  at  least  out  of  the  four  gave  their  names  in  due 
time  to  patrician  houses  in  Rome.  Mnestheus,  who 
commands  the  Shark,  left  his  name  (certainly  with  con- 
siderable modification)  to  the  gens  or  clan  of  Memmius. 
The  captain  of  the  Centaur,  Sergestus,  is  in  like  man- 
ner the  reputed  ancestor  of  the  Sergian  clan,  as  Cloan- 
thus,  wTho  sails  the  Scylla,  is  of  the  Cluentian.  Only 
Gyas,  the  captain  of  the  Chimsera,  a bulky  craft,  “as 
big  as  a town,”  has  no  such  genealogical  honors  as- 
signed him. 

The  course  lies  out  in  the  bay,  and  the  competing 
vessels  are  to  round  a rock,  covered  at  high  tides,  on 
which  an  oak  has  been  set  up,  leaves  and  all,  to  serve 
as  a mark  for  the  steersmen.  They  take  up  tlier  posi- 
tions by  lot,  and  await  the  signal,  to  be  given  by  sound 
of  trumpet.  The  picture  of  the  start  would  suit,  with 
wonderfully  little  alteration,  the  description  of  a modern 
University  boat-race: 

“ And  now  on  rowing-bench  they  sit, 

Bend  to  the  oar  their  arms  close  knit, 

And  straining  watch  the  sign  to  start, 

While  generous  trembling  fills  each  heart, 

And  thirst  for  victory. 


80 


VIRGIL. 


Then,  at  the  trumpet’s  piercing  sound. 

All  from  their  stations  onward  bound: 

Upsoars  to  heaven  the  oarsmen’s  shout, 

The  upturned  billows  froth  and  spout. 

With  plaudits  loud  and  clamorous  zeal 
Echoes  the  woodland  round ; 

The  pent  shores  roll  the  thunder-peal, 

The  stricken  hills  resound.” 

[Our  modern  oarsmen  would  certainly  be  wiser  in  tliis, 
that  they  would  reserve  tlieir  own  breath  (of  which  they 
would  find  considerable  need  towards  the  end  of  the 
race),  and  leave  the  whole  of  the  shouting  to  be  done 
by  enthusiastic  spectators.] 

“ First  Gyas  issues  from  the  rout, 

And  holds  the  foremost  place: 

Cloanthus  next;  h>s  oarsmen  row 
More  featly,  but  his  bark  is  slow, 

And  checks  him  in  the  race. 

Behind  at  equal  distance  strain 
Centaur  and  Shark  the  lead  to  gain ; 

And  now  the  Shark  darts  forth,  and  now 
The  Centaur  has  advanced  her  bow; 

And  now  the  twain  move  side  by  side, 

Their  long  keels  trailing  through  the  tide.” 

So  goes  the  race,  until  the  galleys  near  the  rock  which 
they  have  to  round.  Gyas  sees  that  his  steersman, 
from  over-caution,  is  giving  it  too  wide  a berth,  and 
that  there  is  danger  of  the  Scylla,  more  venturous,  cut- 
ting in  between.  He  shouts  an  order  to  keep  closer  in; 
but  the  old  seaman  is  somewhat  obstinate,  and  it  is  very 
soon  too  late.  Cloanthus  has  seen  his  advantage,  shot 
round  the  rock  at  very  close  quarters,  and  now  leaves 
Gyas  in  the  Chimaera  behind.  Burning  with  fury, 
Gyas  turns  on  his  steersman,  and  pitches  him  into  the 
sea.  Happily  he  can  swim,  and  the  rock  is  close  at 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


8 


hand ; he  climbs  upon  it,  and  sits  there  dripping,  to  the 
considerable  amusement  of  the  spectators,  who,  like  all 
lookers-on,  seem  unmercifully  alive  to  the  ludicrous 
element  in  any  disaster. 

Deprived  of  her  helmsman,  the  huge  Cliimocra  loses 
her  course  for  a moment,  and  the  two  galleys  in  the 
rear  are  quick  to  take  advantage  of  it.  The  Shark  and 
Centaur  are  now  rounding  the  rock  almost  side  by  side. 
But  Sergestus,  in  his  eagerness  not  to  lose  an  inch  of 
advantage,  emulates  the  manoeuvre  of  the  Scylla  too 
closely,  and  takes  the  Centaur  too  near.  Her  broadside 
of  oars  touch  some  of  the  jutting  crags,  the  oars  are 
broken,  and  the  boat’s  head  takes  the  rock,  and  hangs 
there  hard  and  fast.  All  efforts  of  the  crew  to  get  her 
off  are  unavailing.  Mnestheus  makes  the  dangerous 
turn  safely  on  the  outside  of  Ins  rival,  and  his  men,  en- 
couraged by  success,  redouble  their  efforts.  The  Chi- 
maera  has  no  good  steersman  to  replace  old  Menoetes,  who 
is  still  drying  himself  on  the  rock,  and  she  is  easily 
passed  on  the  return  course  homewards.  The  struggle 
becomes  now  one  of  intense  interest  between  Mnestheus 
and  Cloanthus,  who  is  still  leading  in  the  Scylla. 

“ The  cheers  redouble  from  the  shore; 

Heaven  echoes  with  the  wild  uproar; 

Those  blush  to  lose  a conquering  game, 

And  fain  would  peril  life  for  fame: 

These  bring  success  their  zeal  to  fan— 

They  can,  because  they  think  they  can.” 

The  Shark  has  a stern  chase,  but  the  Scylla  rows 
heavily,  as  we  have  been  told,  though  she  has  the  best 
crew,  and  the  distance  lessens  at  every  stroke.  Had 
the  course  been  longer,  the  Shark  would  have  made  at 
least  a dead  heat  it.  But  as  it  is,  amidst  a storm  of 
shouts,  the  Scylla  wins.  The  turning-point  of  victory 


82 


VIRGIL. 


is  one  which  does  not  approve  itself  to  modern  readers. 
The  sea-deities  interfere.  Standing  high  upon  his 
quarter-deck,  Cloantlius  lifts  his  prayer  to  the  powers 
of  ocean,  not  to  permit  his  prize  to  be  snatched  from  him 
at  the  last.  He  vows  an  offering  of  a milk-white  bull 
and  libations  of  red  wine  if  they  will  help  him  at  his 
need, 

“ He  said;  there  heard  him  ’neath  the  sea 
The  Nereid  train  and  Panope; 

And  with  his  hand  divinely  strong, 

Portunus*  pushed  the  bark  along.” 

Possibly,  after  all,  the  poet  only  means  us  to  under- 
stand  that  this  was  Mnestheus’s  explanation  of  his  de» 
feat — that  the  luck  was  against  him  f 

Cloanthus  is  crowned  with  bays  as  the  victor  of  the 
day,  and  receives  as  his  prize  an  embroidered  robe  of 
rare  device — one  of  those  miracles  of  divers  colors  of 
needlework  in  which  the  classical  age  seems  to  have  as 
far  excelled  us  as  the  mediaeval  ladies  certainly  did. 
Each  crew  receives  three  oxen  and  a supply  of  wine, 
while  a talent  of  silver  is  divided  amongst  the  men  of 
the  victorious  Scylla.  Mnestheus,  as  second  in  the 
race,  wins  a shirt  of  mail  whose  scales  are  of  gold, 
which  two  of  his  attendants  bear  off  with  difficulty. 


* One  of  the  Roman  sea-deities. 

+ Such  explanations  of  an  unfavorable  result  are  not  entirely 
unknown  in  the  annals  of  modern  boat-races.  Reasons  of  a very 
apocryphal  kind,  if  not  so  boldly  mythological,  have  been  as- 
signed by  modern  captains  of  crews  for  their  having  been  beaten. 
When  an  unsuccessful  oarsman  recounts  his  deeds  to  a sympa- 
thetic audience,  and  “ tells  how  fields  were”  not  won,  he  is  apt 
to  complain  that,  in  some  form  or  other,  the  river-gods  were  un- 
just. The  state  of  the  tide,  or  an  intruding  barge,  or  an  impru- 
dent supper  on  the  part  of  “No.  7,”  takes  the  place  of  Panope 
and  Portunus. 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


83 


The  third  of  the  captains  has  a pair  of  brazen  caldrons 
and  chased  silver  bowls.  But  while  the  awards  are 
being  distributed,  the  crippled  Centaur  has  got  off 
the  rock,  and  is  brought  into  harbor;  and  a Cretan 
slave- woman,  with  her  twin  children,  is  allotted,  by 
the  liberality  of  iEneas,  as  a consolation  to  her  captain. 

From  the  shore  of  the  bay  the  company  now  move 
off  to  a natural  amphitheatre  close  at  hand,  where  the 
rest  of  the  games  are  to  be  exhibited.  iEneas  takes 
his  place  high  in  the  midst  on  an  extemporized  throne. 
For  the  foot-race,  which  comes  first  on  the  list,  a 
crowd  of  competitors  enter,  both  of  native  Sicilians  and 
of  their  Trojan  guests.  Among  the  Sicilians  are  Sa- 
lius  and  Patron,  of  Greek  families  settled  in  the  island, 
and  Helymus  and  Panopes,  friends  and  companions  of 
Acestes.  The  favorites  among  the  Trojans  are  Diores, 
one  of  the  many  sons  of  Priam,  and  Nisus  and  Eury- 
aluz,  noted  for  their  romantic  friendship,  of  which  we 
shall  hear  more  hereafter.  The  prizes  in  this  contest 
are  a war-horse  with  full  trappings  for  the  first,  an 
Amazonian  quiver  for  the  second,  and  a helmet — the 
spoil  of  some  conquered  Greek  on  the  plain  of  Troy — 
for  the  third.  Nisus  goes  off  with  a strong  lead,  and 
has  the  race  easily  in  hand.  Next  him,  but  at  a long 
interval,  comes  Salius,  Euryalus  lying  third,  Helymus 
and  Diores,  close  together,  fourth  and  fifth.  But 
when  within  a short  distance  of  the  goal,  Nisus  slips 
up  in  the  blood  and  filth  which  has  been  left  un- 
cleared at  the  spot  where  the  oxen  have  been  sacrificed, 
and  falls  heavily  to  the  ground.  Knowing  himself 
to  be  out  of  the  race,  he  determines  that  his  dear 
Euryalus  shall  win.  So,  by  a piece  of  most  unjusti- 
fiable jockeyship,  which  ought  to  have  led  to  his  being 
warned  off  from  all  such  contests  for  ever  after,  he 


84 


VIRGIL. 


rises  up  at  the  moment  that  Salius  is  passing,  and 
brings  him  clown  upon  him.  Euryalus  has  thus  an 
easy  victory,  Helymus  and  Diores  coming  in  second 
and  third.  Very  naturally,  there  is  much  dispute 
about  the  award.  Salius  complains  loudly  of  unfair 
play;  but  young  Eurvaius  is  handsome  and  popular, 
and  Diores  backs  his  claim  energetically ; for  it  is  very 
evident  that  if  Salius  is  adjudged  the  first  prize, 
Euryalus  the  second,  and  Helymus  the  third,  then  he 
— Diores — will  be  nowhere.  So  the  resultis  accepted 
by  the  judges  as  it  stands.  But  iEneas  quiets  the 
reasonable  objections  of  Salius  by  the  present  of  a 
lion’s  hide  with  gilded  claws.  Then  Nisus  makes 
appeal  for  compensation,  pointing  out  to  the  laughing 
spectators  the  blood  and  dirt  which  are  the  very  dis- 
agreeable evidences  of  his  mishap,  and  protesting,  with 
a consummate  impudence  which  suits  with  the  popular 
humor,  that  the  whole  thing  was  an  accident,  and  that 
he,  as  the  winner  that  would  have  been,  is  the  real 
object  of  commiseration.  If  a fall  deserves  a prize, 
who  has  so  good  a claim  as  the  man  who  fell  first? 
Again  the  generosity  of  iEneas  answers  the  appeal, 
and  Msus  is  presented  with  a shield  of  the  finest  work- 
manship, another  Greek  trophy.  Successful  knavery, 
if  the  knave  be  somewhat  of  a humorist  withal,  always 
wins  a sort  of  sympathy  from  the  public — in  the  Au- 
gustan epic  as  well  as  in  modern  comedy. 

The  prizes  of  the  foot-race  having  been  thus  decided, 
the  lists  are  cleared  for  the  boxing-match.  The  boxing- 
match  of  the  classical  ancients  was  very  different  in- 
deed from  a modern  set-to.  The  combatants  certainly 
wore  gloves;  but  these  were  meant  to  add  weight  and 
force  to  the  blow,  not  to  deaden  it.  The  stoutest 
champion  of  the  modern  prize-ring  might  shrink  from 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES . 


85 


encountering  an  antagonist  whose  fists  were  bound 
round  with  strips  of  hardened  ox-liide.  But  such  was 
the  “ csestus”  wThich  was  worn  b}r  the  pugilists  of  this 
heroic  age.  The  prizes  are  displayed  by  iEneas;  for 
the  conqueror,  a bull  with  gilded  horns;  a helmet  and 
falchion  for  the  loser.  Up  rises  the  Trojan  Dares, 
whose  strength  and  skill  are  w^ell  known.  The  only 
man  whom  he  acknowledged  as  his  superior  in  the  ring 
was  one  whom  we  might  have  least  expected — Paris, 
who  certainly  bears  no  such  reputation  in  Homer.  At 
the  great  games  held  in  honor  of  the  dead  Hector,  of 
which  we  have  the  very  briefest  note  in  the  Iliad, 
Dares  had  defeated  the  hugh  champion  Butes,  sprung 
from  a race  of  athletes,  and  so  mangled  him  that  he 
died  on  the  spot.  No  wonder  that  when  he  now  steps 
forth,  and  goes  through  some  preparatory  sparring  with 
the  air,  no  one  is  found  bold  enough  to  put  on  the 
gloves  with  him.  So,  after  a glance  of  triumph  round 
the  admiring  circle,  he  advances  to  where  the  bull 
stands  in  front  of  iEneas,  lays  his  hand  upon  its  horns, 
and  claims  it  as  his  rightful  property  in  default  of  an 
antagonist. 

King  Accstes  is  concerned  for  the  honor  of  Sicily. 
There  is  lying  beside  him  on  the  grass  a gray-haired 
chief  named  Entellus,  sometime  a pupil  in  this  art  of 
the  great  hero  Eryx,  who  gave  his  name  to  the  moun- 
tain which  overhangs  the  place  of  assembly.  Will  he 
sit  tamely  by,  Acestes  asks,  and  see  this  Trojan  boaster 
carry  off  the  prize  and  the  glory  unchallenged?  Entel- 
lus listens  to  his  friend,  and  feels  the  old  fire  stir  within 
him.  He  would  willingly  enter  the  ring  once  more  for 
the  honor  of  his  native  island,— 

“ But  strength  is  slack  in  limbs  grown  old, 

And  aged  blood  runs  dull  and  cold. 


86 


VIRGIL 


Had  I the  thing  I once  possessed, 

Which  makes  yon  braggart  rear  his  crest, 

Had  I but  youth,  no  need  had  been 
Of  gifts,  to  lure  me  to  the  green.” 

He  rises  from  his  seat,  however,  and  throws  down  in 
the  arena,  by  way  of  challenge,  a pair  of  ancient  gloves 
of  a most  murderous  pattern.  Seven  folds  of  tough 
bull-hide  have  knobs  of  lead  and  iron  sewn  inside  them. 
They  are  the  gloves  in  which  the  hero  Eryx  fought  his 
fatal  battle  with  Hercules,  whom  he  had  rashly  chal- 
lenged, and  they  still  bear  the  blood-stains  of  Eryx’s 
previous  victories.  Dares,  stout  champion  as  he  is, 
starts  back  in  dismay  when  he  sees  them,  and  iEneas 
himself  takes  them  up  and  handles  them  with  wonder. 
Entellus,  however,  will  not  insist  on  using  these;  and 
two  pair  of  less  formidable  manufacture  and  of  equal 
weight  are  produced,  with  which  the  two  heroes  en- 
gage. Virgil’s  description  of  this  ancient  prize-fight  is 
highly  spirited.  It  may  remind  some  readers,  who  are 
old  enough  to  remember  snch  things,  of  the  bulletins  of 
similar  encounters  between  a “ light-weight  ” and  a 
“heavy-weight,”  furnished  in  past  days  by  sporting 
writers  to  our  own  newspapers — with  the  happy  omis- 
sion of  the  slang  of  the  ring: 

“ Raised  on  his  toes  each  champion  stands, 

And  fearless  lifts  in  air  his  hands. 

Their  heads  thrown  back  avoid  the  stroke; 

Their  mighty  arms  the  fight  provoke. 

That  on  elastic  youth  relies, 

This  on  vast  limbs  and  giant  size; 

But  the  huge  knees  with  age  are  slack, 

And  fitful  gasps  the  deep  chest  rack. 

Full  many  a blow  the  heroes  rain 
Each  on  the  other,  still  in  vain: 

Their  hollow  sides  return  the  sound, 

Their  battered  chests  the  shock  rebound: 


TEE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


8? 


’Mid  ears  and  temples  come  and  go 
The  wandering  gauntlets  to  and  fro: 

The  jarred  teeth  chatter  ’neath  the  blow. 

Firm  stands  Entellus  in  his  place, 

A column  rooted  on  its  base ; 

His  watchful  eye  and  shrinking  frame 
Alone  avoid  the  gauntlet’s  aim. 

Like  leaguer  who  invests  a town, 

Or  sits  before  a hill-fort  down, 

The  younger  champion  tasks  his  art 
To  find  the  bulwark’s  weakest  part; 

This  way  and  that  unwearied  scans, 

And  vainly  tries  a thousand  plans. 

Entellus,  rising  to  the  blow, 

Puts  forth  his  hand:  the  wary  foe 
Midway  in  air  the  mischief  spied, 

And,  deftly  shifting,  slipped  aside. 

Entellus’  force  on  air  is  spent: 

Heavily  down  with  prone  descent 
He  falls,  as  from  its  roots  uprent 
A pine  falls  hollow,  on  the  side 
Of  Erymanth  or  lofty  Ide.” 

Acestes  rushes  in,  like  an  attentive  second,  to  raise 
his  friend;  and  Entellus,  roused  to  fury  by  his  fall, 
renews  the  fight  savagely : 

“Ablaze  with  fury  he  pursues 
The  Trojan  o’er  the  green, 

And  now  his  right  hand  deals  the  bruise, 

And  now  his  left  as  keen.  % 

No  pause,  no  respite:  fierce  and  fast 
As  hailstones  rattle  down  the  blast 
On  sloping  roofs,  with  blow  on  blow, 

He  buffets  Dares  to  and  fro.” 

The  unhappy  Dares  is  borne  off  by  his  friends  in 
miserable  plight, — with  half  his  teeth  knocked  out, 
blood  streaming  from  his  face,  and  hardly  able  to 
stand.  All  the  savage  has  been  roused  in  Entellus’s 
nature  by  the  fight.  He  is  not  half  satisfied  that  his 


83 


VIRGIL. 


victim  has  escaped  him.  He  would  gladly  have  sacri- 
ficed him  to  the  memory  of  his  great  master  Eryx, — 
here,  on  the  spot  where  that  hero  fought  his  own  last 
fight.  He  lays  his  hand  upon  the  hull,  the  prize  of  bat- 
tle, and  addresses  HSneas  and  the  spectators.  Dryden’s 
version  of  this  passage,  though  it  contains  as  much  of 
Dryden  as  of  Virgil,  has  justly  been  praised  as  very  noble : 

“ ‘ O goddess-born,  and  ye  Dardanian  host, 

Mark  with  attention,  and  forgive  my  boast; 

Learn  what  I was  by  what  remains,  and  know 
From  what  impending  fate  you  saved  my  foe!’ 

Sternly  he  spoke,  and  then  confronts  the  bull; 

And  on  his  ample  forehead  aiming  full, 

The  deadly  stroke  descending  pierced  the  skull. 

Down  drops  the  beast,  nor  needs  a second  wound, 

But  sprawls  in  pangs  of  death,  and  spurns  the  ground. 
‘Then  thus,  in  Dares’  stead,  I offer  this: 

Eryx,  accept  a nobler  sacrifice; 

Take  the  last  gift  my  withered  arms  can  yield— 

Thy  gauntlets  I resign,  and  here  renounce  the  field.’  ” 

Mr.  Conington  has  well  remarked  that  here  we  have, 
no  doubt,  “the  veteran  combatant’s  feelings  ns  con- 
ceived by  the  veteran  poet.”  He  wrote  the  lines  in 
his  sixty-second  year,  and  they  harmonize  pathetically 
with  the  words  in  his  dedication:  “What  I now  offer 
to  your  lordship  is  the  wretched  remainder  of  a sickly 
age.”  We  are  not  obliged  to  take  this  self-depreciation 
too  literally:  whatever  may  be  the  shortcomings  of 
Dryden’s  translation,  the  hand  of  the  old  poet  had  no 
more  lost  its  vigor  than  that  of  Entellus. 

The  archers  are  next  to  try  their  skill.  In  this 
contest  Acestes  himself  takes  part.  The  other  com- 
petitors are  Mnestlieus,  whose  crew  were  just  now 
second  in  the  race;  Eurytion,  a brother  of  Pandarus, 
the  great  archer  of  the  Iliad,  whose  treacherous  arrow, 


THE  FUJSE11AL  GAMES. 


89 


launched  against  Menelaus  during  the  truce,  had  well- 
nigh  turned  the  fate  of  Troy;  and  Hippocoon,  of 
whom  we  know  nothing  more.  He  draws  the  first 
lot,  and  his  arrow  strikes  the  mast  on  which  the  mark, 
a live  dove,  is  perched.  Mnestheus  shoots  next,  and 
cuts  the  cord  which  fetters  her;  and  as  slie  flies  away 
a shaft  from  Eurytion’s  bow  follows  and  kills  her. 
There  is  nothing  left  for  Acestes  to  do,  but  to  shoot  an 
arrow  high  in  the  air  to  show  the  strength  of  his  hand 
and  his  bow.  To  the  astonishment  of  the  gazers,  the 
arrow  takes  fire,  and,  leaving  a trail  of  light  on  its 
path  like  a shooting-star,  vanishes  in  the  sky.  It  is 
an  omen,  as  HSneas  declares;  it  must  be  that  the  gods, 
in  spite  of  facts,  will  him  to  be  the  real  victor.  So 
the  prize — an  embossed  bowl,  a present  from  the 
father  of  Hecuba  to  Ancliises — is  awarded  to  the 
Sicilian  prince,  even  Eurytion,  the  actual  winner, 
acquiescing  heartily  in  the  arrangement.  Yet  the 
omen,  as  the  poet  tells  us,  really  boded  disaster; 
though  whether  to  Sicily  or  to  the  Trojans,  or  how  it 
wTas  afterwards  fulfilled,  he  does  not  stop  to  explain. 
Commentators  have,  as  a matter  of  duty,  done  so  for 
him;  but  it  is  hardly  worth  while  tu  vex  ourselves 
with  their  conjectures  on  a point  on  which  iEneas 
himself  was  mistaken. 

The  games  are  over — at  least,  so  far  as  the  public 
programme  seems  to  have  gone.  But  iEneas  has  a 
surprise  in  store  for  his  hosts.  He  whispers  privately 
to  the  governor  or  tutor  of  his  son  lulus,  while  he 
requests  the  company  once  more  to  clear  the  amphi- 
theatre. Soon  there  sweeps  into  the  ring  the  young 
chivalry  of  Troy — a goodly  company  of  mounted 
youths,  all  of  noble  blood,  who  are  to  play  out  their 
play  before  their  assembled  seniors. 


90 


VIRGIL . 


“ They  enter,  glittering  side  by  side, 

And  rein  their  steeds  with  youthful  pride, 
As  ’neath  their  fathers’  eyes  they  ride, 
While  all  Trinacria’s  host  and  Troy’s 
With  plaudits  greet  the  princely  boys. 

Each  has  his  hair  by  rule  confined 
With  stripped-off  leaves  in  garland  twined: 
Some  ride  with  shapely  bows  equipped: 
Two  cornel  spears  they  bear,  steel- tipped: 
And  wreaths  of  twisted  gold  invest 
The  neck,  and  sparkle  on  the  breast. 

Three  are  the  companies  of  horse, 

And  three  the  chiefs  that  scour  the  course: 
Twelve  gallant  boys  each  chief  obey, 

And  shine  in  tripartite  array. 

Young  Priam  first,  Polites’  heir, 

Well  pleased  his  grandsire’s  name  to  bear. 
Leads  his  gay  troop,  himself  decreed 
To  raise  up  an  Italian  seed : 

He  prances  forth,  all  dazzling  bright. 

On  Thracian  steed  with  spots  of  white: 
White  on  its  fetlock’s  front  is  seen, 

And  white  the  space  its  brows  between. 
Then  Atys,  next  in  place,  from  whom 
The  Atian  family  descend: 

Young  Atys,  fresh  with  life’s  first  bloom, 
The  boy  lulus’  sweet  boy-friend: 
lulus  last,  in  form  and  face 
Pre-eminent  his  peers  above, 

A courser  rides  of  Tyrian  race, 

Memorial  gift  of  Dido’s  love. 

Sicilian  steeds  the  rest  bestride 
From  old  Acestes’  stalls  supplied. 

The  Dardanids  with  mingling  cheers 
Relieve  the  young  aspirants’  fears, 

And  gaze  delighted,  as  they  trace 
A parent’s  mien  in  each  fair  face. 

“ And  now,  when  all  from  first  to  last 
Beneath  their  kinsfolk's  eyes  had  past, 
Before  the  assembled  crowd, 


TEE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


91 


Epytides  shrills  forth  from  far 
His  signal-shout,  as  if  for  war, 

And  cracks  his  whip  aloud. 

In  equal  parts  the  bands  divide, 

And  gallop  off  on  either  side: 

Then  wheeling  round  in  full  career 
Charge  at  a call  with  levelled  spear 
Again,  again  they  come  and  go, 

Through  adverse  spaces  to  and  fro ; 

Circles  in  circles  interlock, 

And,  sheathed  in  arms,  the  gazers  mock 
With  mimicry  of  battle-shock. 

And  now  they  turn  their  backs  in  flight. 

Now  put  their  spears  in  rest, 

And  now  in  amity  unite, 

And  ride  the  field  abreast.” 

Such  was  the  Ludus  Trojse — “The  Game  of  Troy” 
— introduced,  according  to  the  poet,  by  lulus  in  after- 
days into  liis  new-built  town  of  Alba,  and  borrowed 
from  Alba  by  the  Romans.  Whatever  its  origin  may 
have  been,  it  was  revived  at  Rome  by  Augustus,  in 
his  zeal  for  restorations  of  all  kinds,  as  “an  ancient 
and  honorable  institution.”  Princes  of  the  imperial 
house — young  Marcellus,  and  Tiberius  the  future  em- 
peror— rode,  like  lulus,  in  the  show ; the  emperor 
himself  took  a warm  interest  in  it  ; and  the  eagerness 
of  the  young  patricians  to  distinguish  themselves  in 
the  various  manoeuvres  before  his  eyes  and  those  of 
their  friends  led  to  serious  accidents.  To  one  young 
horseman  who  was  crippled  by  his  fall  Augustus  gave 
a golden  torque,  and  granted  to  him  and  his  family 
permission  to  bear  the  name  of  “Torquatus” — renowned 
in  the  early  annals  of  Rome.  But  other  accidents 
happened,  and  led  to  such  loud  complaints  that  the 
sport  was  discontinued. 

But  while  the  eyes  of  Trojans  and  Sicilians  are  en- 


92 


VIRGIL. 


gaged  with  this  spectacle,  a terrible  proceeding  has 
taken  place  down  on  the  shore.  The  ships,  as  usual, 
are  drawn  up  there  hard  and  fast  upon  the  sand.  The 
Trojan  matrons  are  gathered  near  them,  making  moan 
for  the  good  Anchises — for  the  games  are  a spectacle 
for  men.  They  are  looking  wistfully,  too,  across  the 
sea,  thinking  how  far  they  have  sailed  already,  and  how 
far  they  may  yet  have  to  sail.  The  watchful  hate  of 
Juno  sees  her  opportunity.  She  despatches  Iris  down 
to  them  in  the  shape  of  one  of  their  number — Beroe. 
She  harangues  them  eloquently.  How  long  will  they 
be  content  to  live  this  wandering  life,  in  search  of  a 
distant  home — which  possibly  has  no  existence  but  in 
deceitful  prophecies  ? 

The  disguised  Iris  seizes  a brand  and  rushes  towards 
the  ships.  While  the  rest  hesitate,  one  of  their  num- 
ber detects  the  star-like  eyes  and  celestial  gait.  It  is  not 
old  Beroe — nay,  she,  to  the  witness’s  own  knowledge,  lies 
sick  at  this  very  moment  in  bed.  It  is  no  less  than  a visi- 
tor from  heaven.  They  hesitate  no  longer:  they  snatch 
the  embers  from  the  altars,  and  in  a moment  the  deed  is 
done,  and  the  galleys  are  in  flames.  The  news  is 
brought  to  iEneas  just  as  the  gay  parade  of  youths  is 
ending;  and  Ascanius  gallops  at  once  down  to  the 
shore,  dashes  his  helmet  on  the  ground  that  ail  may 
know  him,  and  implores  the  furious  women  to  stay 
their  hands.  Do  they  fancy  they  are  burning  the 
war-ships  of  the  Greeks?  His  voice  recalls  them  to 
themselves,  and  in  guilty  fear  and  shame  they  fly  to 
hide  themselves  among  the  rocks  and  woods.  iEneas 
rends  his  clothes,  and  appeals  to  Jupiter.  The  ruler  of 
the  sky  hears,  and  sends  down  a thunder-shower  which 
drenches  everything  on  sea  and  shore,  so  that  all  but 
four  galleys  escape  with  little  damage. 


THE  FUNERAL  GAMES. 


93 


But  iEneas  is  troubled  at  heart.  May  not  this  mad 
instinct  of  the  women  be  right,  after  all?  Were  it  not 
better  to  rest  here  in  Sicily,  than  wander  on  again  over 
the  weary  ocean  in  quest  of  this  Western  Land?  He 
takes  counsel  with  the  Nestor  of  the  fleet — the  aged 
Nautes — to  whom  the  goddess  of  wisdom  has  given  an 
understanding  spirit  beyond  his  fellows.  The  old  sea- 
man’s motto  is  one  of  the  poet’s  noblest  utterances*—' 

“ Whate’er  betides,  he  only  cures 
The  stroke  of  fortune  who  endures.” 

He  bids  his  chief  take  counsel,  too,  with  Acestes.  In 
the  visions  of  the  night  the  shade  of  his  father  Anchises 
once  more  appears  to  him,  and  gives  the  same  advice  as 
Nautes.  It  is  settled  that  the  women  and  the  old  men, 
and  all  that  are  wTeary  and  faint-hearted,  shall  be  left 
behind  in  Sicily,  while  the  picked  band  of  good  men 
and  true  sail  on  with  their  leader  into  the  west;  thus 
their  reduced  number  of  ships  will  yet  suffice  tliem.f 
The  damaged  galleys  are  hastily  repaired,  and  the 
foundations  of  a new  town  are  marked  out  for  the 
Trojan  settlers:  it  is  to  be  called  Acesta,  in  honor  of 
their  kind  host.  The  parting  of  the  wanderers  from 
their  friends  is  a fine  passage,  finely  rendered: 


* “ Superanda  omnis  fortuna  ferendo  est.” 
t Virgil  himself  has  no  word  of  reproach  for  these  weaker 
spirits,  who  thus  preferred  the  rest  of  Sicily  to  the  far-off  hopes 
of  Hesperia.  But  his  impassioned  pupil  Dante  is  less  merciful: 
he  classes  them  in  his  “Purgatory”  with  the  murmuring  Israel- 
ites: 

“ First  they  died,  to  whom  the  sea 
Opened,  or  ever  Jordan  saw  his  heirs; 

And  they  who  with  iEneas  to  the  end 
Endured  not  suffering,  for  their  portion  chose 
Life  without  glory.” 


Purg.  xviii,  (Cary.) 


94 


VIRGIL. 


“ With  kindliness  of  gentle  speech 
The  good  iEneas  comforts  each, 

And  to  their  kinsman  prince  commends 
With  tears  his  subjects  and  his  friends. 

Three  calves  to  Eryx  next  he  kills; 

A lambkin’s  blood  to  Tempest  spills, 

And  bids  them  loose  from  land: 

With  olive-leaves  he  binds  his  brow,  • 

Then  takes  his  station  on  the  prow, 

A charger  in  his  hand, 

Flings  out  the  entrails  on  the  brine, 

And  pours  a sacred  stream  of  wine.  , 

Fair  winds  escort  them  o’er  the  deep: 

With  emulous  stroke  the  waves  they  sweep.” 


Chapter  VI. 

THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 

The  Sea-god,  at  Venus’s  intercession  for  her  son, 
sends  -Eneas  and  his  crews  calm  seas  and  prosperous 
gales.  One  victim  only  the  Fates  demand;  Palinurus, 
the  pilot  of  -Eneas’s  ship,  gives  way  to  sleep  during 
the  quiet  watches  of  the  night,  slips  overboard,  and  is 
lost.  The  poet  has  clothed  the  whole  story  in  a trans- 
parent mythological  allegory,  and  which  must  have 
been  intended  to  be  transparent.  Sleep  is  personified ; 
Palinurus  resists  his  first  temptations;  but  the  god 
waves  over  his  eyes  a bough  steeped  in  dews  of  Lethe, 
the  river  of  forgetfulness,  and  the  unhappy  steersman 
can  hold  out  no  longer.  The  accident  happeus  near  the 
shore  of  the  twin  Sirens,  of  whose  seductions  Homer 
has  told  us  in  the  wanderings  of  Ulysses: 

“ A perilous  neighborhood  of  yore 
And  white  with  mounded  bones, 

Where  the  hoarse  sea  with  far-heard  roar 
Keeps  washing  o’er  the  stones.” 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


95 


.Eneas  discovers  liis  loss  by  the  unsteady  course  of  the 
galley,  and  takes  the  helm  himself,  until  he  brings  the 
little  fleet  safe  into  the  harbor  of  Cumae.  The  crews 
disembark,  with  the  303^  which  these  seamen  of  old 
always  felt  when  they  touched  land  again,  and  proceed 
at  once  to  search  for  water,  cut  wood,  and  light  fires: 

“ Sage  Daedalus— so  runs  the  tale— 

From  Minos  bent  to  fly, 

On  feathery  pinions  dared  to  sail 
Along  the  untravelled  sky; 

Flies  northward  through  the  polar  heights, 

Nor  stays  till  he  on  Cumae  lights. 

First  landed  here,  he  consecrates 
The  wings  whereon  he  flew 
To  Phoebus’  power,  and  dedicates 
A fane  of  stately  view.” 

Here  .Eneas  consults  the  mysterious  Sibyl,  whose  orac- 
ular verses  are  referred  to  in  Virgil’s  Pastoral  already 
noticed.  She  figures  under  various  names  in  classical 
story — that  which  she  bears  here  is  DeiphobS.  Her 
dwelling  is  in  a cave  in  the  rock  behind  the  temple, 
with  which  it  communicates  by  a hundred  doors. 
Within  sits  the  prophetess  on  a tripod,  where  she  re- 
ceives the  inspiration  of  the  god.  When  the  oracle  is 
pronounced,  the  doors  all  fly  open,  and  the  sound  comes 
forth.  But  there  is  one  way  in  which  she  is  wont  to 
give  her  answers,  against  which  Helenus  has  already 
warned  her  present  visitors.  She  has  a habit  of  jotting 
down  her  responses  in  verse  upon  the  leaves  of  trees — 
each  verse  apparently  on  a separate  leaf — and  then  pil- 
ing them  one  upon  another  in  her  cave.  When  the 
doors  fly  open,  the  gust  of  wind  whirls  the  leaves  here 
and  there  in  all  directions;  and  the  ambiguities  which 
are  proper  to  all  oracles  are  considerably  increased  in 
the  process  of  rearranging  the  several  leaves  into  any- 


96 


VIRGIL. 


tiling  like  coherent  order — the  Sibyl  herself  disdaining 
all  further  interference.  So  that  many  of  her  clients  go 
away  without  having  received  any  intelligible  answer 
at  all,  and  from  that  time  forth  “hate  the  very  name  of 
the  Sibyl.”  A modern  writer,*  whose  poetical  taste 
has  made  him  one  of  the  most  interesting  critics  of 
Virgil,  has  thought  that  the  confusion  of  the  prophetic 
leaves  was  meant  to  symbolize  the  idea  that  the  will  of 
the  gods  was  made  known  to  mortals  only  in  disjointed 
utterances,  and  under  no  regular  law  of  order.  iEneas, 
therefore,  in  his  appeal  to  the  prophetess,  begs  her  spe- 
cially to  give  her  answer  by  word  of  mouth. 

Deiphobe  proceeds  to  the  seat  of  augury,  and  goes 
through  the  terrible  struggle  which,  according  to  all 
legends,  invariably  accompanied  this  form  of  prophecy. 
Even  when  she  comes  in  view  of  the  awful  doors,  the 
influence  begins: 

“ Her  visage  pales  its  hue, 

Her  locks  dishevelled  fly, 

Her  breath  comes  thick,  her  wild  heart  glows; 
Dilating  as  the  madness  grows, 

Her  form  looks  larger  to  the  eye, 

Unearthly  peals  her  deep-toned  cry. 

As  breathing  nearer  and  more  near 
The  God  comes  rushing  on  his  seer.” 

The  paroxysms  increase  after  she  has  entered  the  cave, 
and  is  in  the  agonies  of  inspiration: 

“ The  seer,  impatient  of  control, 

Raves  in  the  cavern  vast, 

And  madly  struggles  from  her  soul 
The  incumbent  power  to  cast. 

He,  mighty  Master,  plies  the  more 
Her  foaming  mouth,  all  chafed  and  sore, 


* Keble. 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES . 


97 


Tames  her  wild  heart  with  plastic  hand, 

And  makes  her  docile  to  command.” 

At  last  all  the  hundred  doors  fly  open  at  once,  and  the 
voice  of  destiny  comes  forth.  The  wanderers  shall 
reach  Latium  safely,  but  they  shall  wish  they  had  never 
reached  it. 

“War,  dreadful  war,  and  Tiber  flood. 

I see  incarnadined  with  blood; 

Simois  and  Xanthus,  and  the  plain 
Where  Greece  encamped  shall  rise  again: 

A new  Achilles,  goddess-born, 

The  destinies  provide, 

And  Juno,  like  a rankling  thorn, 

Shall  never  quit  your  side. 

The  old,  old  cause  shall  stir  the  strife — 

A stranger  bed,  a foreign  wife. 

Yet  still  despond  not,  but  proceed 
Along  the  path  where  Fate  may  lead.” 

iEneas  hears, — undismayed.  He  is  a true  hero  so  far, 
that  he  is  always  equal  to  his  fate.  One  request  he 
makes  of  the  Sibyl, — that  he  may  visit  the  shades  be- 
low, the  entrance  to  which  is  said  to  lie  here,  within 
the  prophetess’s  domain,  and  there  see  again  the  face  of 
his  father.  Deiphob&  consents,  but  not  without  the 
solemn  warning,  often  quoted  to  point  a far  higher 
moral  than  the  heathen  poet  was  likely  to  have  con- 
ceived — so  often,  that  the  Latin  words  themselves  are 
probably  familiar  even  to  those  who  profess  but  little 
Latin  scholarship: 

“Facilis  descensus  Averni; 

Noctes  atque  dies  patet  atra  janua.  Ditis; 

Sed  revocare  gradum,  superasque  evadere  ad  auras, 

Hoc  opus,  hie  labor  est.” 

Their  terseness  and  pathos  are  not  easy  to  reproduce 


VIRGIL. 


in  any  other  language,  but  Mr.  Conington  has  done  it 
as  well,  perhaps,  as  it  could  be  done: 

“ The  journey  down  to  the  Abyss 
Is  prosperous  and  light; 

The  palace-gates  of  gloomy  Dis 
Stand  open  day  and  night; 

But  upward  to  retrace  the  way, 

And  pass  into  the  light  of  day, — 

There  comes  the  stress  of  labor— this 
May  task  a hero’s  might.” 

Few  are  they  of  mortal  birth  who,  by  the  special  grace 
of  the  gods,  have  achieved  that  desperate  venture  with 
success.  Still,  if  HCneas  is  determined  to  attempt  it, 
she  will  teach  him  the  secret  of  the  passage.  Deep  in 
the  shades  of  the  neighboring  forest  there  grows  a tree 
which  bears  a golden  bough,  which  he  must  find  and 
carry  with  him  into  the  regions  of  the  dead;  it  is  the 
gift  which  Proserpine,  who  reigns  there,  claims  from 
all  who  enter  her  court. 

Accompanied  by  his  faithful  Achates,  iEneas  enters 
the  woods  in  quest  of  the  golden  bough.  The  search 
seems  in  vain,  until  two  white  doves,  the  birds  of  his 
goddess-mother  Venus,  make  their  appearance,  and, 
leading  the  way  by  short  successive  flights,  draw  the 
seekers  on  to  the  wondrous  tree,  on  which  they  at  last 
alight.  The  hero  makes  prize  of  the  golden  branch, 
with  which  he  returns  to  the  Sibyl.  Under  her  direc- 
tions he  offers  the  due  sacrifices  to  the  infernal  powers 
— four  black  bulls,  a barren  heifer,  and  a black  ewe- 
lamb — and  then,  still  under  the  leading  of  the  prophet- 
ess, with  drawn  sword  in  his  hand,  he  enters  the  mouth 
of  Hades. 

“ Along  the  illimitable  shade 
Darkling  and  lone  their  way  they  made, 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES . 


Through  the  vast  kingdom  of  the  dead, 

An  empty  void,  though  tenanted. 

So  travellers  in  a forest  move 
With  but  the  uncertain  moon  above, 

Beneath  her  niggard  light, 

When  Jupiter  has  hid  from  view 
The  heaven,  and  Nature’s  every  hue 
Is  lost  in  blinding  night. 

‘ At  Orcus’  portals  hold  their  lair 
Wild  Sorrow  and  avenging  Care; 

And  pale  Diseases  cluster  there, 

And  pleasureless  Decay, 

Foul  Penury,  and  Fears  that  kill. 

And  Hunger,  counsellor  of  ill, 

A ghastly  presence  they: 

Suffering  and  Death  the  threshold  keep. 

And  with  them  Death’s  blood-brother  Sleep: 

111  Joys  with  their  seducing  spells 
And  deadly  War  are  at  the  door; 

The  Furies  couch  in  iron  cells, 

And  Discord  maddens  and  rebels; 

Her  snake-locks  hiss,  her  wreaths  drip  gore. 

“ Full  in  the  midst  an  aged  elm 
Broods  darkly  o’er  the  shadowy  realm: 

There  dream-land  phantoms  rest  the  wing. 

Men  say,  and  ’neath  its  foliage  cling. 

And  many  monstrous  shapes  beside 
Within  the  infernal  gates  abide; 

There  Centaurs,  Scyllas,  fish  and  maid. 

There  Briareus’  hundred-handed  shade, 

Chimsera  armed  with  flame, 

Gorgons  and  Harpies  make  their  den, 

With  the  foul  pest  of  Lerna’s  fen, 

And  Geryon’s  triple  frame.” 

Then  they  come  in  sight  of  the  livers  of  Hell — Ache- 
ron, Cocytus,  and  Styx.  The  relative  plij'sical  geogra- 
phy is  somewhat  confused  by  the  poet,  but  it  is  the 
Styx  on  which  the  Ferryman  of  the  Shades,  the  surly 
Charon,— 


100 


VIRGIL . 


“ Grim,  squalid,  foul,  with  aspect  dire, 

His  eyeballs  each  a globe  of  fire,”— 

plies  his  office  of  transporting  the  dead,  performing  the 
duties  which  Homer  assigns  to  Mercury.  But  it  is  not 
all  who  even  in  death  are  allowed  to  pass  the  gloomy 
river.  Only  those  who  have  received  all  due  rites  of 
burial  can  claim  to  enter  the  final  abode  of  spirits  at 
once;  those  unhappy  ones  who  from  any  cause  lie  un- 
buried have  to  wander,  moaning  and  shivering,  on  the 
other  side,  for  a space  of  a hundred  years.  So  the 
Sibyl  explains  to  iEneas,  when  he  marks  with  surprise 
how  the  shades  all  crowd  eagerly  to  the  boat-side  pray- 
ing for  admission,  and  how  the  grisly  ferryman  drives 
some  back  with  his  oar.  It  is  a sad  thought  to  the 
hero;  for  amongst  the  rejected  he  sees  some  of  his  own 
companions  who  had  perished  in  the  storm  olf  the 
coast  of  Carthage.  Among  them,  too,  he  sees  the  fig- 
ure of  his  late  pilot  Palinurus,  who  tells  him  the  story 
of  his  unhappy  fate;  how,  after  all,  he  was  not 
drowned,  but,  clinging  to  the  piece  of  rudder  which 
had  broken  away  with  him,  had  drifted  three  days 
and  nights  upon  the  waves,  and  had  at  last  swam 
ashore  on  the  fated  coast  of  Italy.  There  the  cruel  na- 
tives had  attacked  and  killed  him,  as  he  struggled  up 
the  cliffs;  and  now  his  corpse  lies  tossed  to  and  fro 
amid  the  breakers  in  the  harbor  of  Yelia.  He  prays  of 
his  leader  either  to  sail  back  there  and  to 

“ Give  him  a little  earth  for  charity;” 

or,  by  his  influence  with  these  Powers  below,  to  get 
the  law  of  exclusion  relaxed  in  his  favor.  This  last 
request  the  Sibyl  rebukes  at  once,  as  utterly  inorthodox 
and  heretical;  but  comforts  him  at  the  same  time 
with  the  assurance  that  the  barbarous  natives  shall  be 


TUE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES.  101 


plagued  by  heaven  for  their  abominable  deed,  nor 
shall  they  find  deliverance  until  they  solemnly  propi- 
tiate his  shade  by  the  erection  of  a mound  and  the 
establishment  of  funeral  honors,  and  call  the  spot  by 
the  name  of  Palinurus — which  name,  the  Sibyl  declares, 
shall  endure  there  forever.  The  oracular  voice  in 
this  case  was  not  deceitful:  the  place,  or  supposed 
place,  is  still  called  “ Punta  di  Palinuro.”  Virgil's 
imperial  audience  might  know  it  well,  for  Augustus 
was  very  nearly  himself  becoming  a sacrifice  on  that 
very  spot  to  the  manes  of  the  ancient  pilot,  many  of 
his  ships  having  been  cast  away  on  that  very  headland. 

Charon  is  by  no  means  gracious  to  the  intruders.  At 
first  he  warns  them  off.  He  has  no  pleasant  recollec- 
tions of  former  visitors  from  upper  air,  who,  without 
the  proper  qualification  of  being  previously  dead  and 
duly  burnt  or  buried,  had  made  their  way  against  all 
rule  into  this  abode  of  shadows.  Hercules  had  come 
there,  and  carried  off  their  watchful  guardian  Cerberus: 
Theseus  and  his  friend  Piritkous  had  even  tried  to  do 
the  same  by  Proserpine. 

“ My  laws  forbid  me  to  convey 
Substantial  forms  of  breathing  clay. 

’Twas  no  good  hour  that  made  me  take 
Alcides  o’er  the  nether  lake, 

Nor  found  I more  auspicious  freight 
In  Theseus  and  his  daring  mate ; 

Yet  all  were  Heaven’s  undoubted  heirs, 

And  prowess  more  than  man’s  was  theirs. 

That  from  our  monarch’s  footstool  dragged 
The  infernal  watch-dog,  bound  and  gagged; 

These  strove  to  force  from  Pluto’s  side 
Our  mistress,  his  imperial  bride.” 

The  Sibyl  bids  Charon  have  no  fears  of  this  kind  now— 
Cerberus  and  Proserpine  are  safe  from  all  designs  on  the 


102 


VIRGIL. 


part  of  her  companion.  This  is  iEneas  of  Troy,  known 
for  his  “piety”  as  widely  as  fos  his  deeds  of  arms. 
He  does  hut  seek  an  interview  with  his  sire  Anchises. 
But,  if  Charon  be  deaf  to  all  such  arguments, — she 
shows  the  golden  bough.  The  passport  is  irresistible. 
Sullenly,  and  without  a word  of  reply,  the  dark  boat- 
man brings  his  craft  to  shore,  and  bids  the  freight  of 
ghosts  clear  the  decks  and  make  room  for  his  living 
passengers.  The  boat  groans,  its  seams  open  and  let  in 
the  water,  as  the  substantial  flesh  and  blood  steps  on 
board.*  So,  in  the  Iliad  of  Homer,  the  mortal  horses 


* The  rickety  state  of  Charon’s  boat  was  always  a fertile  source 
of  wit  to  the  freethinkers  among  the  classical  satirists.  Lucian, 
in  one  of  his  very  amusing  dialogues,  makes  Charon  complain  of 
his  passengers  bringing  luggage  with  them:  “ My  boat  is  some- 
thing rotten,  look  you,  and  lets  in  a good  deal  of  water  at  the 
seams;  if  you  come  on  board  with  all  that  luggage  you  may  re- 
pent it— especially  those  of  you  who  can’t  swim.”— (Dial.  Mort., 
x.)  So  in  another  dialogue  Menippus  thinks  it  hard  to  be  asked 
to  pay  for  his  passage  over,  when  “ he  helped  to  bale  the  boat  all 
the  way.”  It  may  be  observed  that  the  boat  is  said  to  be  made 
of  hide,  stretched  on  a wooden  frame,  like  the  “coracles”  of  the 
Britons,  still  in  use  on  some  of  the  Welsh  rivers.  There  may  be 
some  connection  with  an  ancient  tradition  which  would  identify 
the  “ white  rock”  of  which  Homer  speaks  (Od.,  xxiv.  11)  as  mark- 
ing the  entrance  to  the  regions  of  the  dead  with  the  cliffs  of  our 
own  island— “ Albion.”  A curious  old  legend  of  the  coast  of 
France  gives  some  color  to  the  interpretation.  There  was  a tribe 
of  fishermen  who  were  exempted  from  payment  of  tribute,  on 
the  ground  that  they  ferried  over  into  Britain  the  souls  of  the  de- 
parted. At  nightfall,  when  they  were  asleep  (so  the  legend  ran), 
they  would  be  awakened  by  a loud  knocking  at  their  doors,  and 
voices  calling  them,  and  feel  a strange  compulsion  to  go  down  to 
the  seashore.  There  they  found  boats,  not  their  own,  ready 
launched,  and  to  all  appearance  empty.  When  they  stepped  on 
board  and  began  to  ply  their  oars  they  found  the  boats  move  as 
though  they  were  heavily  laden,  sinking  within  a finger's  breadth 
of  the  water’s  edge;  but  they  saw  no  man.  Within  an  hour,  n3 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


103 


and  earthly  chariot  of  Diomed  groan  and  strain  under 
their  immortal  burden,  when  Minerva  takes  her  seat  be- 
side the  champion. 

Cerberus,  in  spite  of  Hercules,  is  at  home  again,  and 
on  the  watch.  His  three  heads  and  snake-wreathed 
neck  are  lifted  in  fury  at  the  sight  of  strangers,  and  his 
bark  rings  through  the  shades.  But  the  Sibyl  has 
brought  with  her  a medicated  cake,  which  she  throws 
down  to  him : he  eats,  and  falls  at  once  into  a heavy  sleep. 

Then,  led  by  the  Sibyl,  the  Trojan  chief  passes 
through  the  various  regions  of  the  world  below.  First 
they  hear  the  cries  of  those  infants  who  but  just  knew 
life  in  the  world  above,  and  then  were  snatched  away 
from  its  enjoyment.* *  Next  them  come  those  who  have 
been  condemned  to  death  by  an  unjust  judgment,  and 
for  whom  Minos  here  sits  as  judge  of  appeals.  In  the 
next  region  are  those  unhappy  ones — 

“ Who  all  for  loathing  of  the  day 
In  madness  threw  their  lives  away: 

How  gladly  now  in  upper  air 
Contempt  and  beggary  would  they  bear, 

And  labor’s  sorest  pain ! 


it  seemed,  they  reached  the  opposite  coast — a voyage  which  i 
their  own  boats  they  hardly  made  in  a whole  day  and  night.  Whe  i 
they  touched  the  shore  of  Britain  still  they  saw  no  shape,  bi  t 
they  heard  voices  welcoming  their  ghostly  passengers,  and  call- 
ing each  of  the  dead  by  name  and  rank.  Then  having  got 
rid,  as  it  seemed,  of  their  invisible  freight,  they  put  off  again  for 
home,  feeling  their  boats  so  sensibly  lightened  that  hardly  more 
than  the  keel  touched  the  water.— See  Gesner’s  notes  on  Clau- 
dian,  iii.  123;  Procopius,  De  Bell.  Goth.,iv  20. 

* We  have  here  the  foundation  of  the  fanciful  doctrine  of  a 
Limbo  Infantum,  held  by  some  doctors  of  the  Romish  Church — 
a kind  of  vestibule  to  the  greater  Purgatory,  in  which  were 
placed  the  souls  of  such  children  as  died  before  they  were  old 
enough  to  be  admitted  to  the  sacraments. 


104 


VIRGIL. 


Fate  bars  the  way:  around  their  keep 
The  slow  unlovely  waters  creep, 

And  bind  with  threefold  chain.” 

Suicide  was  no  crime  in  the  early  pagan  creed;  but 
Virgil  has  to  a certain  degree  adopted  the  Platonic  no- 
tion, that  to  take  away  one’s  own  life  was  to  desert  the 
post  of  duty.  It  is  remarkable  how  thoroughly  he 
adopts  Homer’s  view  of  the  incomparable  superiority  of 
the  life  of  the  upper  world  to  the  best  possible  estate  in 
the  land  of  shadows.  We  have  here  again  the  sad  la- 
ment of  Achilles  in  the  Iliad — that  the  life  of  a slave  on 
earth  was  more  to  be  desired  than  the  colorless  existence 
of  the  heroes  in  Elysium. 

Passing  from  these  outer  circles,  the  travellers  reach 
the  “ Mourning  Fields,”  in  which  the  poet  places  all  the 
victims  of  love.  If  there  was  any  doubt  as  to  his  view 
of  the  passion — that  it  was  a lower  appetite,  excus- 
able enough  in  man,  but  in  a woman  either  to  be 
reprobated  or  pitied  according  to  circumstances — it 
would  be  set  at  rest  by  the  characters  of  those  victims 
with  whom  he  peoples  this  unlovely  region.  Grouped 
together  with  such  devoted  wives  as  Evadne,  who, 
when  her  husband  fell  in  the  Trojan  war,  slew  herself 
for  grief  upon  his  funeral  pile,  and  Laodamia,  whose 
only  crime  was  that  by  her  too  urgent  prayers  she  won 
back  her  dead  Protesilaus  to  her  embrace  for  a few 
fleeting  moments,  and  died  of  joy  in  his  arms,*  we  find 


* “ Aloud  she  shrieked!  for  Hermes  reappears; 

Round  the  dear  shade  she  would  have  clung — ’tis  vain, 
The  hours  are  past— too  brief,  had  they  been  years; 
And  him  no  mortal  effort  can  detain: 

Swift,  toward  the  realms  that  know  not  earthly  day. 
He  through  the  portal  takes  his  silent  way, 

And  on  the  palace-floor  a lifeless  corse  she  lay. 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES. 


105 


the  treacherous  Eriphyle,  who,  for  the  bribe  of  a golden 
necklace,  persuaded  her  husband  Aniphiarus  to  go  to 
his  predestined  death  in  the  same  war,  and  even  such 
disgraces  to  their  sex  as  were  Phaedra  and  Pasiphae. 
In  these  Mourning  Fields  iEneas  meets  one  whom 
he  would,  it  may  be  conceived,  have  very  gladly 
avoided.  Half  veiled  in  mist,  seen  dimly  like  the 
moon  through  a cloud.  Dido  stands  before  him  there: 
and  thus,  for  the  first  time,  he  is  made  certain  of  her 
death.  iEneas  is  ready  with  regrets,  and  even  tears. 

“ She  on  the  ground  averted  kept 
Hard  eyes  that  neither  smiled  nor  wept; 

Nor  bated  more  of  her  stern  mood, 

Than  if  a monument  she  stood.” 

At  last,  without  a word,  she  turns  from  her  false 
lover,  and  seeks  in  the  dim  groves  the  society  of  her 
dead  husband  Sichseus. 

The  Sibyl  leads  her  companion  on  to  the  Field  of 
the  Heroes.  There  he  sees  the  mighty  men  of  old : the 
chiefs  wTho  fought  against  Thebes  in  the  great  siege 
which  preceded  that  of  Troy — Tydeus,  and  Adrastus, 
and  Partlienopeeus.  There,  too,  are  the  shades  of  his 
own  companions  in  arms,  who  fell  in  defence  of  their 
city.  Among  these  last  is  one  who  has  another  tale  to 
tell  of  the  abominable  Helen.  It  is  Deiphobus,  one  of 
the  many  sous  of  Priam,  to  whom  Helen  had  been 


“ By  no  weak  pity  might  the  gods  be  moved; 

She  who  thus  perished,  not  without  the  crime 
Of  lovers  that  in  Reason’s  spite  have  loved, 

Was  doomed  to  wear  out  her  appointed  time, 

Apart  from  happy  ghosts  that  gather  flowers 
Of  blissful  quiet  ’mid  unfading  bowers.” 

—Wordsworth’s  “ Laodamia.” 


106 


VIRGIL. 


given  after  tlie  death  of  Paris.  iEneas  is  shocked  to 
see  the  unsubstantial  shape  of  the  prince  bearing  the 
marks  of  barbarous  mutilation;  his  hands  lopped,  his 
face  gashed,  and  his  ears  and  nostrils  cut  off.  (For, 
even  in  this  shadowy  existence,  the  ghosts  all  bear  the 
marks  of  violent  death — Dido’s  self-inflicted  wound 
being  specially  mentioned.)  iEneas  asks  the  history  of 
this  terrible  disfigurement,  and  Deiphobus  tells  it  at 
some  length:  how  the  double  traitoress,  who  was  then 
his  wife,  had  led  Menelaus  and  his  companion,  the 
accursed  Ulysses,  to  the  chamber  where  he  lay  sunk  in 
sleep  on  the  disastrous  night  of  the  city’s  capture,  and 
how  they  two  had  thus  mangled  his  body. 

But  the  Sibyl  warns  her  companion,  who  stands 
absorbed  in  grief  at  his  comrade’s  fate,  that  the  per- 
mitted hours  of  their  visit  are  fast  passing  away.  She 
guides  him  on  to  where  the  path  they  are  treading 
divides,  leading  in  one  direction  to  the  Elysian  Fields, 
in  the  other  to  Tartarus, — for  the  district  which  they 
have  explored  already  is  represented  as  of  an  entirely 
neutral  character.  On  the  left,  JEneas  sees  rise  before 
him  the  broad  bastions  of  Tartarus,  round  which  flows 
the  fiery  stream  of  Plilegethon: 

“ In  front  a portal  stands  displaj^ed, 

On  adamantine  columns  stayed ; 

Nor  mortal  nor  immortal  foe 
Those  massy  gates  could  overthrow. 

An  iron  tower  of  equal  might 
In  air  uprises  steep ; 

Tisiphone,  in  red  robes  dight, 

Sits  on  the  threshold  day  and  night, 

With  eyes  that  know  not  sleep. 

Hark ! from  within  there  issue  groans, 

The  cracking  of  the  thong, 

The  clank  of  iron  o’er  the  stones 
Dragged  heavily  along.” 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES.  107 


.Eneas  asks  of  his  companion  the  meaning  of  these 
fearful  sounds.  They  are  the  outcries  of  the  wicked  in 
torment.  They  may  not  be  seen  by  human  eyes;  but 
Deiphobe  herself  has  been  shown  all  the  horrible  secrets 
of  their  prison-house  by  Hecate,  when  intrusted  by  that 
goddess  with  the  charge  of  the  entrance  to  the  Shades. 
She  tells  iEneas  how  Rhadamanthus  sits  in  judgment 
there,  and  forces  the  wicked  to  confess  their  deeds. 
Crimes  successfully  concealed  on  earth  are  there  made 
manifest;  then  the  culprit  is  handed  over  to  the  Furies 
for  punishment.  Such  punishments  are  various  as  the 
crimes;  strange  and  horrible  in  the  cases  of  extraordinary 
offenders, — especially  against  the  majesty  of  the  gods. 
In  the  lowest  gulf  of  all, — 

“ Where  Tartarus,  with  sheer  descent, 

Dips  ’neath  the  ghost-world  twice  as  deep 
As  towers  above  earth's  continent 
The  height  of  heaven’s  Olympian  steep,”— 

lie  the  twin  giants,  sons  of  Aloeus,  who  sought  to  storm 
heaven,  and  hurl  Jupiter  from  his  throne.  There,  too, 
is  chained  Salmoneus,  who,  counterfeiting  the  thunder 
and  lightning  of  the  Olympian  ruler,  was  struck  down 
by  the  force  which  he  profanely  imitated.  Tit}ros,  son 
of  Earth,  who  dared  to  offer  violence  to  the  goddess 
Latona,  lies  there  also,  suffering  the  punishment  assigned 
by  the  Greek  mythologists  to  Prometheus: 

“ O’er  acres  nine  from  end  to  end 
His  vast  unmeasured  limbs  extend', 

A vulture  on  his  liver  preys: 

The  liver  fails  not,  nor  decays: 

Still  o’er  that  flesh  which  breeds  new  pangs*. 

With  crooked  beak  the  torturer  hangs, 

Explores  its  depth  with  bloody  fangs. 

And  searches  for  her  food ; 


108 


VIRGIL. 


Still  haunts  the  cavern  of  his  breast, 

Nor  lets  the  filament  have  rest, 

To  endless  pain  renewed.” 

Virgil  is  here  more  literally  orthodox,  and  less  philoso- 
phical in  his  creed,  than  his  master  Lucretius.  For 
he,  too,  knew  the  story  of  Tityos,  but  saw  in  it  only 
an  allegory;  “every  man  is  a Tityos,”  says  the  elder 
poet,  “whose  heart  is  torn  and  racked  perpetually  by 
his  own  evil  lusts  and  passions.”  Other  and  various 
torments  has  the  Sibyl  seen;  for  the  selfish  and 
covetous,  for  the  adulterer,  for  the  betrayer  of  trust, 
and  the  spoiler  of  the  orphan;  the  feast  ever  spread 
before  the  hungry  eyes  and  ever  vanishing;  the  rock 
overhanging  the  head  of  the  guilt}',  ever  ready  to  fall ; 
the  stone  that  has  to  be  rolled  with  vast  labor  up  the 
hill,  only  to  roll  back  again  for  ever;  and,  most  remark- 
able of  all  punishments,  the  doom  of  the  restless  adven- 
turer Theseus  for  his  attempt  on  Proserpine — to  sit  for 
ever  in  perpetual  inactivity.  And  amidst  them  all  rings 
out  the  warning  voice  of  Phlegyas  (condemned  for 
having  set  fire  to  the  temple  of  Apollo)  from  his  place 
of  torment: 

“Be  warned— learn  righteousness— and  reverence  heaven.” 

Here  again  we  have,  it  may  be,  a protest  against  the 
teaching  of  Lucretius:  a distinct  rejection,  on  Virgil’s 
part,  of  the  materialistic  doctrine  which  would  deny  a 
divine  Providence  and  human  responsibility. 

The  whole  conception  of  Virgil’s  hell  is  grand  and 
terrific.  Highly  material  and  sensational,  it  is  hardly 
more  so  than  mediaeval  divines  and  artists  have  repre- 
sented; and  indeed  it  is  more  than  probable  that,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  they  often  adopted  pagan 
notions  on  the  subject.  In  its  moral  teaching,  whether 
the  poet  intended  his  descriptions  to  be  taken  in  their 


TEE  SIBYL  AND  TEE  SEADES.  109 


literal  sense  or  interpreted  in  the  way  of  parable,  his 
creed  has  at  least  the  essential  elements  of  truth. 

But  now  the  visitors  turn  their  steps  towards  the  Ely- 
sian  Fields,  and  after  duly  hanging  up  the  golden  bough 
at  the  gate  for  Proserpine’s  acceptance,  they  enter  those 
abodes  of  the  blest: 

“ Green  spaces,  folded  in  with  trees, 

A paradise  of  pleasaunces;  j 

Around  the  champaign  mantles  bright 
The  fulness  of  purp ureal  light; 

Another  sun  and  stars  they  know, 

That  shine  like  ours,  but  shine  below.” 

There  are  assembled  the  illustrious  dead — warriors  who 
have  died  for  their  country;  priests  of  unstained  life; 
bards  who  have  never  perverted  their  powers;  all  who 
have  been  benefactors  of  mankind, — 

“ A goodly  brotherhood,  bedight 
With  coronals  of  virgin  white.” 

Shadows  as  they  are,  all  the  items  of  their  happiness 
are  material.  The  games  of  the  palaestra,  the  song  of 
the  bard,  the  care  of  ghostly  horses  and  ghostly  chariots, 
form  the  interests  of  this  world  of  spirits — the  interests 
of  earth,  without  earth’s  substantial  realities.  The  poet 
found  his  imagination  fail  him,  as  it  fails  us  all,  when 
he  tries  to  paint  the  details  of  an  incorporeal  existence. 

Among  these  happy  spirits  the  hero  finds  his  father 
Ancliises.  He  recognizes  and  addresses  him.  Anchises 
had  expected  the  visit,  and  receives  him  with  such  tears 
of  joy  as  spirits  may  shed.  But  when  .Eneas  strives  to 
embrace  him,  the  conditions  of  this  spiritual  world  for- 
bid it 

“ Thrice  strove  the  son  his  sire  to  clasp; 

Thrice  the  vain  phantom  mocked  his  grasp: 

No  vision  of  the  drowsy  night, 

No  airy  current,  half  so  light.” 


110 


VIRGIL. 


The  occupation  of  Anchises  in  these  regions  is  much 
more  philosophical  than  that  which  is  assigned  to  the 
other  shades.  He  is  contemplating  the  unborn  rulers 
of  the  Rome  that  is  to  be;  the  spirits,  as  yet  incorporeal, 
which  are  soon  to  receive  a new  body,  and  so  go  forth 
into  upper  air.  Deep  in  a forest  lies  the  river  Lethe, 
and  a countless  multitude  of  forms  are  seen  thronging 
its  banks,  to  drink  of  the  water  of  forgetfulness.  Oblivi- 
ous of  all  their  past  lives,  they  will  thus  take  their  place 
once  more,  in  changed  bodies,  among  the  inhabitants  of 
earth.  The  poet’s  adaptation  of  the  Pythagorean  doc- 
trine of  transmigration  is  none  of  the  clearest;  but  he 
signifies  that,  after  the  lapse  of  a thousand  years  in  a 
kind  of  Purgatory  below,  these  spirits  are  again  sum- 
moned to  play  their  part,  in  new  bodies,  upon  earth. 
Anchises  can  read  their  destinies;  and  he  points  out  to 
his  son  the  shadowy  forms,  like  the  kings  in  “Macbeth,” 
that  are  to  be  the  kings  and  consuls  of  the  great  Roman 
nation.  First,  those  who  shall  reign  in  Alba—  Silvius, 
that  shall  be  born  to  iEneas  in  his  new  home,  Capys, 
and  Numitor;  young  Romulus,  son  of  the  war-god  (he 
wears  already  the  two-crested  helmet  in  right  of  his 
birth),  who  shall  transplant  the  sceptre  to  the  seven- 
hilled  city,  and  the  kings  that  shall  succeed  him  there. 
He  shows  him,  too,  those  who  shall  make  the  future 
great  names  of  the  Republic — Brutus,  the  Decii,  Carnil- 
lus,  Fabius,  and  the  Scipios.  But  the  centre  of  the  pic- 
ture is  reserved  for  one  great  house : 

“ Turn  hither  now  your  ranging  eye: 

Behold  a glorious  family, 

Your  sons  and  sons  of  Rome: 

Lo ! Caesar  there  and  all  his  seed, 
lulus’  progeny,  decreed 
To  pass  ’neath  heaven’s  high  dome. 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES  111 


This,  this  is  he,  so  oft  the  theme 
Of  your  prophetic  fancy’s  dream, 

Augustus  Caesar,  god  by  birth ; 

Restorer  of  the  age  of  gold 
In  lands  where  Saturn  ruled  of  old: 

O'er  Ind  and  Garamant  extreme 
Shall  stretch  his  reign,  that  spans  the  earth. 

Look  to  that  land  which  lies  afar 
Beyond  the  path  of  sun  or  star, 

Where  Atlas  on  his  shoulder  rears 
The  burden  of  the  incumbent  spheres. 

Egypt  e’en  now  and  Caspia  hear 
The  muttered  voice  of  many  a seer, 

And  Nile’s  seven  mouths,  disturbed  with  fear, 

Their  coming  conqueror  know.” 

'The  future  glories  of  Rome  are  described  in  a grand 
and  well-known  passage,  to  the  majestic  rhythm  of 
which  no  English  translator  seems  able  to  do  full  jus- 
tice. The  poet  contrasts  the  warlike  genius  of  his 
countrymen  with  the  softer  accomplishments  of  their 
rivals: 

“ Others  with  softer  hand  may  mould  the  brass, 

Or  wake  to  warmer  life  the  marble  mass; 

Plead  at  the  bar  with  more  prevailing  force, 

Or  trace  more  justly  heaven’s  revolving  course: 

Roman ! be  thine  the  sovereign  arts  of  sway 
To  rule,  and  make  the  subject  world  obey ; 

• Give  peace  its  laws;  respect  the  prostrate  foe; 

Abase  the  lofty,  exalt  the  low.” 

— Symmons.* 


* But  none  of  the  recognized  translations  seem  to  come  so 
near  the  spirit  of  the  original  as  Lord  Macaulay’s  paraphrase — 
for  of  course  it  is  only  a paraphrase— in  his  lay  of  “The  Pro- 
phecy of  Capys:” 

‘ * Leave  to  the  sons  of  Carthage 
The  rudder  and  the  oar ; 

Leave  to  the  Greek  his  marble  nymphs 
And  scrolls  of  wordy  lore: 


112 


VIRGIL. 


One  personal  sketch  the  poet’s  art  had  reserved  to 
the  ]ast.  Anchises  points  out  to  his  visitor  the  shade 
that  is  to  be  the  great  Marcus  Marcellus,  five  times 
consul — the  “ Sword  of  Rome,”  as  Fabius  was  said  to 
be  its  Shield,  in  the  long  wars  with  Carthage,  and  the 
conqueror  of  Syracuse.  By  his  side  moves  the  figure 
of  an  armed  youth,  tall  and  beautiful,  but  whose  face 
is  sad,  and  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground.  The  com- 
pany of  shadows  crowd  round  him,  murmuring  their 
admiration.  Who  is  it?  iEneas  asks.  It  is  the  young 
Marcellus  of  the  Empire,  the  hope  aud  promise  of  Rome 
— the  son  of  Octavia,  sister  of  Augustus,  and  destined, 
as  many  thought,  to  be  his  successor.  Unwillingly 
Anchises  replies  to  his  son’s  question: 

“ Ah  son!  compel  me  not  to  speak 
The  sorrows  of  our  race ! 

That  youth  the  Fates  but  just  display 
To  earth,  nor  let  him  longer  stay: 

With  gifts  like  these  for  aye  to  hold, 

Rome’s  heart  had  e’en  been  overbold. 

Ah!  what  a groan  from  Mars’s  plain 
Shall  o’er  the  city  sound ! 

How  wilt  thou  gaze  on  that  long  train, 

Old  Tiber,  rolling  to  the  main 
Beside  his  ne-wraised  mound! 

No  youth  of  Ilium’s  seed  inspires 
With  hope  as  fair  his  Latian  sires: 

Nor  Rome  shall  dandle  on  her  knee 
A nursling  so  adored  as  he. 

O piety ! O ancient  faith ! 

O hand  untamed  in  battle  scathe  1 
No  foe  had  lived  before  his  sword, 

Stemmed  he  on  foot  the  war’s  red  tide 


Thine,  Roman,  is  the  pilum; 

Roman,  the  sword  is  thine; 

The  even  trench,  the  bristling  mound, 
The  legion’s  ordered  line.” 


THE  SIBYL  AND  THE  SHADES.  113 


Or  with  relentless  rowel  gored 
His  foaming  charger’s  side. 

Dear  child  of  pity ! shouldst  thou  burst 
The  dungeon-bars  of  Fate  accurst, 

Our  own  Marcellus  thou ! 

Bring  lilies  here,  in  handfuls  bring: 

Their  lustrous  blooms  I fain  would  fling 
Such  honor  to  a grandson's  shade 
By  grandsire  hands  may  well  be  paid : 

Yet  O!  it  ’vails  not  now!” 

He  had  died  not  long  before,  in  his  twentieth  year, 
intensely  lamented  both  by  his  family  and  the  people. 

The  recital  of  the  passage  by  the  poet  before  his 
imperial  audience  had  a more  striking  effect  than  even 
he  himself  could  have  expected.  Octavia  swooned 
away,  and  had  to  be  removed  by  her  attendants, — 
sending,  however,  magnificent  presents  afterwards  to 
the  poet  for  his  eulogy  on  her  dead  son.* 

The  biographers  add,  that  Augustus  commanded 
Virgil  to  read  no  further  on  that  day,  and  that  the 
poet  replied  he  had  already  ended  the  subject.  He  has 
not  much  more  to  say  in  this  Sixth  Book.  Anchises 
gives  his  son  some  prophetic  intimations  as  to  his 
future  fortunes  in  Italy,  and  then  escorts  his  visitors 
to  the  gates  of  Sleep. 

•4  Sleep  gives  his  name  to  portals  twain: 

One  all  of  horn,  they  say, 

Through  which  authentic  spectres  gain 
Quick  exit  into  day, 

And  one  which  bright  with  ivory  gleams, 

Whence  Pluto  sends  delusive  dreams. 


* Virgil  is  said  to  have  received  from  her  what  would  amount, 
in  our  money,  to  above  £2000 — “ a round  sum,”  remarks  Dry- 
den,  with  something  like  professional  envy,  “ for  twenty -seven 
verses.” 


114 


VIRGIL . 


Conversing  still,  the  sire  attends 
The  travellers  on  their  road, 

And  through  the  ivory  portal  sends 
From  forth  the  unseen  abode.” 

The  lines  have  been  taken  to  mean  that  this  visit  to 
the  Shades  was,  after  all,  but  a dream. 


Chapter  VII. 

THE  TROJANS  LAND  IN  LATIUM. 

It  has  been  said  that  this  poem  combines  in  some  de- 
gree the  characters  both  of  the  Iliad  and  of  the  Odys- 
sey. Up  to  this  point  we  have  had  the  wanderings  and 
adventures  of  the  Trojan  hero:  he  has  been  the  Ulysses 
of  his  own  tale.  Henceforth  we  have  a tale  of  the 
camp  and  the  battle-field,  of  siege  and  defence,  and  per- 
sonal combat;  and  we  are  reminded,  in  almost  every 
passage,  of  the  stirring  scenes  of  the  Iliad. 

H3neas,  on  his  ascent  into  upper  air,  rejoins  his  crew, 
and  the  fleet,  setting  sail  from  Cumae,  enters  the  noble 
harbor  of  Caieta.  Not  that  the  place  had  any  such 
name  as  yet*  but  there  the  hero  buries  his  old  nurse, 
and  gives  her  name  to  the  spot.  Once  more  embark- 
ing, they  pass  the  promontory  of  Circe,  and  hear,  as 
tlie}r  sail  by,  the  roars  and  yells  of  the  unhappy  prison- 
ers, changed  by  the  spells  of  the  sorceress  into  the  shape 
of  brutes,  whom  she  holds  in  bondage  there.  They 
listen  and  shudder,  and  bless  the  favoring  gale  which 
bears  them  away  from  such  perilous  neighborhood. 
Then,  with  the  morrow’s  dawn,  the  fleet  enters  the 
mouth  of  the  Tiber.  The  picture  of  the  galleys  going 
up  the  stream  is  very  beautiful: 


THE  TROJANS  LAND  IN  LATIUM.  115 


“ The  sea  was  reddening  with  the  dawn: 

The  queen  of  morn  on  high 
Was  seen  in  rosy  chariot  drawn 
Against  a saffron  sky, 

When  on  the  bosom  of  the  deep 
The  Zephyrs  dropped  at  once  to  sleep, 

And,  struck  with  calm,  the  tired  oars  strain 
Against  the  smooth  unmoving  main. 

Now  from  the  deep  iEneas  sees 
A mighty  grove  of  glancing  trees. 

Embowered  amid  the  silvan  scene 
Old  Tiber  winds  his  banks  between, 

And  in  the  ]ap  of  ocean  pours 
His  gulfy  stream,  his  sandy  stores. 

Around,  gay  birds  of  diverse  wing, 

Accustomed  there  to  fly  or  sing, 

Were  fluttering  on  from  spray  to  spray 
And  soothing  ether  with  their  lay. 

He  bids  his  comrades  turn  aside 
And  landward  set  each  vessel’s  head, 

And  enters  in  triumphant  pride 
The  river’s  shadowy  bed.” 

War  is  now  the  subject,  and  Homer  is  the  model.  Yet 
the  Roman  poet  never  shows  his  individual  genius 
more  strongly  than  in  his  treatment  of  the  external 
scenery  amidst  which  his  action  lies.  He  is  still  the 
worshipper  of  Nature,  even  while  he  sets  himself  to 
sing  of  battles,  as  he  was  in  his  Pastorals  and  Georgies. 
Homer  tells  us  of  the  rivers  of  the  Troad,  Simois  and 
Soamander — but  it  is  only  as  they  affect  Hector  or 
Achilles;  his  heart  is  all  the  while  with  the  comba- 
tants, not  with  the  flowing  river.  Not  so  Virgil:  with 
him  we  feel  the  cool  breeze,  we  see  the  glancing 
shadow  of  the  trees  upon  the  river,  we  hear  the  flutter 
of  the  startled  birds,  and  the  long  plash  of  the  oars  in 
the  water : we  sail  with  AEneas  on  a party  of  pleasure, 
rather  than  a voyage  of  conquest. 

Latium  is  reached  at  last.  They  moor  their  galleys 


116 


VIRGIL. 


under  the  trees  ; which  fringe  the  river-banks,  and  land 
to  make  their  morning  meal.  It  is  but  a scant  one. 
Such  wild  fruits  as  they  can  collect  are  laid  upon  |he 
wh eaten  cakes  which  they  have  brought  with  them,  and 
when  the  fruit  is  finished  they  attack  the  cakes  them- 
selves. “ Lo!”  exclaims  lulus— “ we  are  eating  our  ta- 
bles!” Joyfully  ^Eneas  recognizes,  in  the  boy’s  invol- 
untary interpretation,  the  fulfilment  of  the  curse  of  the 
Harpies,*  and  of  certain  strange  words  of  his  father 
Ancliises,  that  when  they  were  reduced  to  “eat  their 
tables,”  then  they  had  found  their  destined  home,  and 
might  begin  to  build  their  city.  This,  then,  is  their 
promised  rest.  He  pours  libations  and  offers  prayers  to 
the  gods  of  the  land,  and  peals  of  thunder  from  a cloud- 
less  sky  seem  to  announce  that  the  invocation  is  ac- 
cepted. 

As  soon  as  the  moon  rises,  scouts  are  sent  out  to  ex- 
plore the  country.  The  king  of  the  land  is  old  Latin  us, 
whose  palace  is  near  at  hand.  He  has  one  only  daugh- 
ter, Lavinia,  for  whose  hand  all  the  neighboring  princes 
have  long  been  suitors.  Turnus  of  Ardea,  the  gallant 
chief  of  the  Rutuli,  tallest  and  handsomest  of  all  the 
rivals,  has  the  goodwill  of  the  queen -mother;  the  mai- 
den’s own  choice  in  such  a matter  being  the  last  consid- 
eration which  would  enter  into  the  thought  of  a Roman 
poet.  When  the  Trojan  chief  has  thus  informed  him- 
self in  some  measure  as  to  the  localities,  he  sends  a for- 
mal embassy  to  King  Latinus’s  court,  carrying  presents 
in  token  of  goodwill.  Meanwhile  he  busies  himself  in 
hurriedly  marking  out  the  boundaries  of  his  new  town, 
and  fencing  it  round  with  an  earthen  rampart  and  a 
palisade. 


* See  p.  61. 


THE  mo  JANS  LAND  IN  LATIUM.  117 


The  strangers  are  ushered  into  the  presence  of  Lati- 
nus,  where  he  sits  in  his  ancestral  palace,  surrounded 
by  the  cedar  statues  of  the  de mi- gods  and  heroes  of  his 
line. 

“ There  too  were  spoils  of  bygone  wars 
Hung  on  the  portals,— captive  cars, 

Strong  city -gates  with  massive  bars, 

And  battle-axes  keen, 

And  plumy  cones  f rom  helmets  shorn, 

A.nd  beaks  from  vanquished  vessels  torn, 

And  darts,  and  bucklers  sheen.” 

He  knows  at  once  who  his  visitors  are.  Strange  por- 
tents had  long  disturbed  his  court,  and  had  warned  him 
that  his  daughter  must  wed  with  no  prince  of  Latian 
race:  that  a foreign  host  and  a stranger  bridegroom  will 
come  to  claim  her,  and  that  the  kings  who  shall  spring 
from  this  union  will  spread  the  Latian  name  from  sea  to 
sea.  He  inquires  the  strangers’  errand  courteously,  and 
the  Trojan  Ilioneus,  as  spokesman  of  the  embassy,  thus 
makes  reply: 

“We  come  not  to  your  friendly  coast 
By  random  gale  o’er  ocean  tost. 

Nor  land  nor  star  has  made  us  stray 
From  our  determined  line  of  way: 

Of  steady  purpose  one  and  all 
We  flock  beneath  your  city  wall, 

Driven  from  an  empire,  greater  none 
Within  the  circuit  of  the  sun. 

Jove  is  our  sire:  to  Jove’s  high  race 
We,  Dardans  born,  our  lineage  trace: 

Jove’s  seed,  the  monarch  we  obey, 
iEneas,  sends  us  here  to-day. 

How  fierce  a storm  from  Argus  sent 
On  Ida’s  plains  its  fury  spent, 

How  Fate  in  dire  collision  hurled 
The  eastern  and  the  western  world. 

E’en  he  has  heard,  whom  earth’s  last  verge 
Just  separates  from  the  circling  surge, 


118 


VIRGIL . 


And  he  who,  to  his  kind  unknown, 

Dwells  midmost  ’neath  the  torrid  zone. 

Swept  by  that  deluge  o’er  the  foam 
For  our  lorn  gods  we  ask  a home : 

A belt  of  sand  is  all  we  crave, 

And  man’s  free  birthright,  air  and  wave. 

We  shall  not  shame  your  Latin  crown. 

Nor  light  shall  be  your  own  renown, 

Nor  time  obliterate  the  debt, 

Nor  Italy  the  hour  regret 

When  Troy  with  outstretched  arms  she  met. 

I swear  it  by  iEneas’  fate, 

By  that  right  hand  which  makes  him  great, 

In  peace  and  war  approved  alike 
A friend  to  aid,  a foe  to  strike. 

Full  oft  have  mighty  nations— nay, 

Disdain  not  that  unsought  we  pray, 

Nor  deem  that  wreaths  and  lowly  speech 
The  grandeur  of  our  name  impeach— 

Full  oft  with  zeal  and  earnest  prayers 
Have  nations  wooed  us  to  be  theirs; 

But  Heaven’s  high  fate,  with  stern  command, 
Impelled  us  still  to  this  your  land. 

Here  Dardanus  was  born,  and  here 
Apollo  bids  our  race  return : 

To  Tyrrhene  Tiber  points  the  seer 
And  pure  Numicius’  hallowed  urn. 

These  presents  to  our  hands  convey, 

Scant  relics  of  a happier  day, 

From  burning  Ilium  snatched  away. 

From  this  bright  gold  before  the  shrine 
His  sire  Anchises  poured  the  wine: 

With  these  adornments  Priam  sate 
’Mid  gathering  crowds  in  kingly  state, 

The  sceptre  and  the  diadem: 

Troy’s  women  wrought  the  vesture’s  hem.” 

The  king  muses  thoughtfully  for  a while  : but  he  rec- 
ognizes the  fulfilment  of  the  auguries.  Let  IEneas  come 
— he  is  welcome.  If  this  be  the  bridegroom  sent  by 
heaven,  he  shall  be  more  welcome  still.  He  sends  back 


THE  TROJANS  LAND  IN  LATIUM  119 


the  ambassadors  in  right  royal  fashion,  all  mounted  on 
choice  horses  from  his  own  stud,  and  wTith  a chariot  of 
honor  to  convey  their  chief  to  an  interview. 

Juno’s  relentless  hatred  is  stirred  once  more.  Will 
neither  fire  nor  sword  kill,  nor  water  drown,  these  ac- 
cursed Trojans?  Shall  she,  the  Queen  of  Heaven,  be 
baffled  by  a mortal  like  iEneas?  If  it  be  written  in  the 
fates  that  he  is  to  wed  Lavinia,  her  marriage  dower  shall 
be  paid  in  Trojan  and  Latian  blood.  Venus  shall  find 
that  she,  like  Hecuba,  has  borne  a firebrand  — that 
iEneas,  like  Paris,  shall  light  a flame  that  shall  con- 
sume his  nation.  If  the  powers  of  heaven  will  not  take 
her  part,  she  will  seek  aid  from  hell.  She  summons 
the  Fury  Alecto  from  the  shades  below,  and  bids  her 
sow  strife  between  the  people  of  Latinus  and  their  for- 
eign visitors. 

The  Fuiy,  rejoicing  in  her  errand,  seeks  the  chamber 
of  Latinus’s  queen,  and  darts  into  her  breast  one  of  the 
living  serpents  that  serve  her  for  coils  of  hair.  Straight- 
way the  queen  is  seized  with  madness,  and,  after  vainly 
trying  to  rouse  her  husband  to  oppose  this  foreign  mar- 
riage, she  rushes  like  a Bacchanal  through  the  neighbor- 
ing villages,  and  calls  upon  the  mothers  of  Latium  to 
avenge  her  wrongs  and  rescue  her  daughter. 

Next  the  Fury  instils  the  same  venom  into  the  heart 
of  Turnus,  where  he  lies  in  his  town  of  Ardea  He  has 
been  the  champion  of  Latium  against  their  enemies  the 
Tuscans,  and  this  is  their  gratitude — to  give  his  prom- 
ised bride  to  another!  The  young  chief  leaps  from  his 
couch,  calls  madly  for  his  arms,  and  orders  an  instant 
march  upon  Latinus’s  capital.  He  will  expel  these  in- 
truders at  once,  and  demand  the  princess  from  her 
father  by  force  of  arms. 

Meanwhile — still  at  the  instigation  of  Alecto — the 


120 


VIRGIL. 


seeds  of  quarrel  liave  been  sown  between  the  men  of 
Latium  and  their  Trojan  guests.  There  is  a tame  deer 
which  has  been  nursed  in  the  house  of  Tyrrheus,  the 
ranger  of  the  royal  forest, — a pet  and  favorite  with  all 
the  country-folk. 

“ Fair  Sylvia,  daughter  of  the  race, 

Its  horns  with  leaves  would  interlace, 

Comb  smooth  its  shaggy  coat,  and  lave 
Its  body  in  the  crystal  wave. 

Tame  and  obedient,  it  would  stray 
Free  through  the  woods  a summer’s  day, 

And  home  again  at  night  repair, 

E’en  of  itself,  how  late  soe’er.” 

In  evil  hour  Ascanius,  riding  out  with  a hunting-party, 
gets  his  hounds  upon  the  scent,  and  shoots  the  poor  ani- 
mal as  it  floats  quietly  down  the  river  in  the  noon-day 
heat.  It  has  just  strength  to  carry  the  Trojan  arrow  in 
its  body  to  its  mistress’s  door,  and  die  moaning  at  her 
feet.*  Tyrrheus  and  his  household  are  mad  with  rage, 
and  rouse  the  whole  country-side  against  this  wanton 
outrage,  as  they  hold  it,  on  the  part  of  the  strangers. 
The  shepherd’s  horn  sounds  out  its  summons  to  the 
whole  neighborhood;  and  the  angry  rustics,  -when  they 
hear  the  story,  seize  axes,  staves,  and  such  rude  weap- 
ons as  come  first  to  hand,  and  attack  the  young  prince 
and  his  hunting-party.  The  Trojans  come  out  from 


* Andrew  Marvell  most  likely  borrowed  his  thought  from  the 
Roman  poet  in  his  graceful  lines,  The  Nymph’s  Complaint:” 

u The  wanton  troopers,  riding  by, 

Have  shot  my  fawn,  and  it  will  die. 

Ungentle  men!  they  cannot  thrive 
Who  killed  thee.  Thou  ne’er  didst  alive 
Them  any  harm,  alas ! nor  could 
Thy  death  yet  do  them  any  good. 


THE  MUSTER  OF  THE  LATIN  TRIBES.  121 


their  intrencliment  to  rescue  their  friends,  and  the  fray 
now  becomes  a regular  battle,  no  longer  fought  with 
stakes  and  hunting  implements,  but  with  sword  and 
spear.  Blood  is  soon  shed;  the  rustic  weapons  are 
no  match  for  the  Trojan  steel;  and  young  Almo,  the 
ranger’s  son,  is  carried  home  dead,  amongst  others. 
Almost  a sadder  loss  is  that  of  the  good  old  yeoman 
Galsesus,  who  yokes  a hundred  ploughs,  and  whose  char- 
acter gives  him  even  more  influence  than  his  wealth. 
He  is  slain  as  he  stands  between  the  combatants,  vainly 
pleading  for  peace. 

The  bodies  are  carried  through  the  city  streets,  as  in 
a modern  revolution,  by  way  of  demonstration.  There 
they  make  their  dumb  appeal  to  the  passions  of  the 
people — 

“ Young:  Almo  in  his  comely  grace, 

And  old  Galsesus'  mangled  face” — 

and  the  appeal  is  answered  by  a universal  cry  for 
“War!” 


Chapter  YIII. 

THE  MUSTER  OF  TnE  LATIN  TRIBES. 

Turnus  arrives  amongst  them  from  Ardea  at  this 
critical  moment,  and  shouts  fiercely  for  instant  battle. 
In  vain  does  King  Latinus  quote  the  oracle,  and  refuse 
to  fight  against  the  destinies.  He  will  be  no  party  to  a 
bloody  and  useless  war.  But  the  impetuosity  of  an 
angry  populace  is  too  strong  for  him.  Powerless  to 
stem  the  popular  current,  he  nevertheless  delivers  his 
own  soul,  and  abdicates  his  sovereignty.  The  guilt  of 
the  blood  that  shall  be  shed  must  rest  on  those  who  stir 
the  war.  He  warns  Turnus  that  he  may  yet  live  to  rue 


122 


VIRGIL. 


the  part  he  has  taken,  when  too  late:  for  himself,  death 
will  soon  put  an  end  to  all  troubles. 

By  an  old  tradition, — handed  on,  as  the  poet  will 
have  it,  from  these  old  days  of  Latium  to  the  Rome  of 
Augustus, — the  powers  of  War  were  held  to  be  confined 
within  the  gates  of  Janus,  the  porter  of  the  Immortals, 
only  to  be  let  loose  by  solemn  act  of  state  authority. 

“Two  gates  there  stand  of  War— ’twas  so 
Our  fathers  named  them  long  ago— 

The  war-god’s  terrors  round  them  spread 
An  atmosphere  of  sacred  dread. 

A hundred  bolts  the  entrance  guard, 

And  Janus  there  keeps  watch  and  ward. 

These,  when  his  peers  on  war  decide, 

The  consul,  all  in  antique  pride 
Of  Gabine  cincture  deftly  tied 
And  purple-striped  attire, 

With  grating  noise  himself  unbars, 

And  calls  aloud  on  Father  Mars: 

The  warrior  train  takes  up  the  cry 
And  horns  with  brazen  symphony 
Their  hoarse  assent  conspire.” 

Since  Latinus  will  not  do  his  office,  Juno  in  person — so 
the  poet  has  it — descends  from  heaven,  smites  upon  the 
barred  portals,  and  ‘‘lets  slip  the  dogs  of  war.” 

“ Ausonia,  all  inert  before, 

Takes  fire  and  blazes  to  the  core: 

And  some  on  foot  their  march  essay, 

Some,  mounted,  storm  along  the  way; 

To  arms!  cry  one  and  all: 

With  unctuous  lard  their  shields  they  clean 
And  make  their  javelins  bright  and  sheen, 

Their  axes  on  the  whetstone  grind; 

Look  how  that  banner  takes  the  wind  1 
Hark  to  yon  trumpet’s  calll 
Five  mighty  towns,  with  anvils  set. 

In  emulous  haste  their  weapons  whet: 


THE  MUSTER  OF  THE  LATIN  TRIBES.  123 


Crustumium,  Tibur  the  renowned, 

And  strong  Atina  there  are  found, 

And  Ardea,  and  Antemnse  crowned 
With  turrets  round  her  wall. 

Steel  caps  they  frame  their  browns  to  fit, 

And  osier  twigs  for  bucklers  knit: 

Or  twist  the  hauberk’s  brazen  mail 
And  mould  them  greaves  of  silver  pale: 

To  these  has  passed  the  homage  paid 
Ere  while  to  ploughshare,  scythe,  and  spade: 

Each  brings  his  father’s  battered  blade, 

And  smelts  in  fire  anew: 

And  now  the  clarions  pierce  the  skies: 

From  rank  to  rank  the  watchword  flies: 

This  tears  his  helmet  from  the  wall, 

That  drags  his  war-horse  from  the  stall, 

Dons  three-piled  mail  and  ample  shield, 

And  girds  him  for  the  embattled  field 
With  falchion  tried  and  true.” 

The  whole  remaining  portion  of  this  seventh  hook  is 
in  Yirgil’s  most  spirited  style.  And  it  is  here  that  the 
harp  of  our  northern  minstrel  answers  best  to  Mr.  Con- 
ington’s  touch.  The  gathering  of  the  clans — for  it  is 
nothing  else — the  rapid  sketches  of  the  chiefs  as  they 
pass  in  succession  with  their  array  of  followers — the  de- 
tails of  costume — the  legendary  tale  which  the  poet  lias 
to  tell  of  more  than  one  of  them  as  he  passes  them  in 
review — even  the  devices  borne  on  the  shields, — are  all 
features  in  which  Scott  delighted  as  thoroughly  as  Vir- 
gil, and  which  his  well-known  rhythm  suits  better  than 
any  other  which  a translator  could  choose.  Some  few 
portions  of  this  stirring  warlike  diorama  must  content 
the  readers  of  these  pages.  The  first  who  passes  is  the 
terrible  chief  of  Agylla,  who  fears  neither  god  nor  man, 
and  whose  notorious  cruelties  have  so  exasperated  his 
own  people  against  him  that  he  is  now  a refugee  in  the 
court  of  Turnus: 


124 


VIRGIL. 


“ Mezen tius  first  from  Tyrrhene  coast, 

Who  mocks  at  heaven,  arrays  his  host. 

And  braves  the  battle’s  storm ; 

His  son,  young  Lausus,  at  his  side, 

Excelled  by  none  in  beauty’s  pride, 

Save  Turnus’  comely  form: 

Lausus,  the  tamer  of  the  steed, 

The  conqueror  of  the  silvan  breed, 

Leads  from  Agylla’s  towers  in  vain 
A thousand  youths,  a valiant  train: 

Ah  happy,  had  the  son  been  blest 
In  hearkening  to  his  sire’s  behest, 

Or  had  the  sire  from  whom  he  came 
Had  other  nature,  other  name!” 

In  tlie  description  of  the  next  leader  we  have  some 
notice  of  early  heraldry: 

” Next  drives  along  the  grassy  meads 
His  palm-crowned  car  and  conquering  steeds 
Fair  Aventinus,  princely  heir 
Of  Hercules  the  brave  and  fair, 

And  for  his  proud  escutcheon  takes 
His  father’s  Hydra  and  her  snakes. 

’Twas  he  that  priestess  Rhea  bare, 

A stealthy  birth,  to  upper  air, 

’Mid  shades  of  woody  Aventine 
Mingling  her  own  with  heavenly  blood, 

When  triumph-flushed  from  Geryon  slain 
Alcides  touched  the  Latian  plain, 

And  bathed  Iberia’s  distant  kine 
In  Tuscan  Tiber’s  flood. 

Long  pikes  and  poles  his  bands  uprear. 

The  shapely  blade,  the  Sabine  spear. 

Himself  on  foot,  with  lion’s  skin, 

Whose  long  white  teeth  with  ghastly  grin 
Clasp  like  a helmet  brow  and  chin, 

Joins  the  proud  chiefs  in  rude  attire, 

And  flaunts  the  emblem  of  his  sire.” 

Coras  and  Catillus,  twin-brothers  from  the  old  town 
of  Tibur;  Caeculus,  from  the  neighboring  Prteneste — 


THE  MUSTER  OF  THE  LATIN  TRIBES.  125 


reputed  son  of  Yulcan,  because  said  to  have  been  found 
as  an  infant  lying  amidst  the  forge  embers — whose 
following  take  the  field  with  slings  and  javelins,  each 
man  with  his  left  foot  bare  to  give  him  firmer  stepping- 
liold;  Clausus  the  Sabine,  from  whom  sprang  the 
great  house  of  the  Claudii — some  of  whom  assuredly 
were  listening  to  the  poet’s  recitation ; Halaesus,  of  the 
seed  of  Agamemnon,  sworn  foe  to  all  who  bear  the 
hated  name  of  Trojan;  and  a host  of  chiefs  of  lesser 
name  and  inferior  powers,  join  the  march.  Messapus, 
the  “horse-tamer,”  brings  with  him  a powerful  band 
of  retainers  from  many  a city,  who  chant  the  deeds  of 
their  leaders  as  they  go— 

“ Like  snow-white  swans  in  liquid  air, 

When  homeward  from  their  food  they  fare. 

And  far  and  wide  melodious  notes 
Come  rippling  from  their  slender  throats, 

While  the  broad  stream  and  Asia’s  fen 
Reverberate  to  the  sound  again. 

Sure  none  had  thought  that  countless  crowd 
A mail-clad  company; 

It  rather  seemed  a dusky  cloud 
Of  migrate  fowl,  that,  hoarse  and  loud, 

Press  landward  from  the  sea. 


1 Came  too  from  old  Marruvia’s  realm, 

An  olive-garland  round  his  helm, 

Bold  Umbro,  priest  at  once  and  knight, 

By  king  Archippus  sent  to  fight: 

Who  baleful  serpents  knew  to  steep 
By  hand  and  voice  in  charmed  sleep, 

Soothed  their  fierce  wrath  with  subtlest  skill, 
And  from  their  bite  drew  off  the  ill. 

But  ah ! his  medicines  could  not  heal 
The  death-wound  dealt  by  Dardan  steel: 

His  slumberous  charms  availed  him  naught. 
Nor  herbs  on  Marsian  mountains  sought, 


126 


VIRGIL. 


And  cropped  with  magic  shears: 

For  thee  Anguitia’s  woody  cave, 

For  thee  the  glassy  Fucine  wave, 

For  thee  the  lake  shed  tears.” 

Nearly  last  of  tlie  warlike  array,  who  all  acknowledge 
him  as  their  leader,  comes  the  prince  of  the  Rutuli, 
^Eneas’s  rival  and  enemy: 

“In  foremost  rank  see  Turnus  move, 

His  comely  head  the  rest  above: 

On  his  tall  helm  with  triple  cone 
Chimgera  in  relief  is  shown; 

The  monster’s  gaping  jaws  expire 
Hot  volumes  of  iEtnean  fire: 

And  still  she  flames  and  raves  the  more 
The  deeper  floats  the  field  with  gore. 

With  bristling  hide  and  lifted  horns, 
lo,  all  gold,  his  shield  adorns, 

E’en  as  in  life  she  stood; 

There  too  is  Argus,  warder  stern, 

And  Inachus  from  graven  urn, 

Her  father,  pours  his  flood.” 

He  brings  with  him  the  largest  host  of  an — a cloud  of 
well-armed  footmen  of  various  tribes,  whose  shields 
seem  to  cover  the  plain . 

This  pretty  picture  of  Camilla,  the  Yolscian  hunt- 
ress (whom  Dryden  very  ungallantly  terms  a “vi- 
rago”), vowed  from  her  childhood  to  Diana — the  pro- 
totype of  Tasso’s  Clorinda,  but  far  more  attractive — 
closes  at  once  the  warlike  pageant  and  the  book : 

“ Last  marches  forth  for  Latium’s  sake 
Camilla  fair,  the  Volscian  maid, 

A troop  of  horsemen  in  her  wake 
In  pomp  of  gleaming  steel  arrayed; 

Stern  warrior -queen ! those  tender  hands 
Ne’er  plied  Minerva’s  ministries: 

A virgin  in  the  fight  she  stands, 

Or  winged  winds  in  speed  outvies; 


THE  MUSTER  OF  THE  LATIN  TRIBES.  13V 

Nay,  she  could  fly  o’er  fields  of  grain 
Nor  crush  in  flight  the  tapering  wheat. 

Or  skim  the  surface  of  the  main 
Nor  let  the  billows  touch  her  feet. 

Where'er  she  moves,  from  house  and  land 
The  youths  and  ancient  matrons  throng, 

And  fixed  in  greedy  wonder  stand, 

Beholding  as  she  speeds  along: 

In  kingly  dye  that  scarf  was  dipped: 

’Tis  gold  confines  those  tresses’  flow: 

Her  pastoral  wand  with  steel  is  tipped, 

And  Lycian  are  her  shafts  and  bow.”  * 

The  story  of  Camilla’s  infancy,  which  is  given  ns 
subsequently,  is  quite  in  accordance  with  this  de- 
scription. Her  father,  driven  from  his  territory,  like 
Mezentius,  by  an  angry  people,  had  carried  his  infant 
daughter  with  him  in  his  flight.  Hard  pressed  by  his 
pursuers,  he  came  to  the  banks  of  a river.  To  swim 


* No  doubt  the  Camilla  of  the  Roman  poet  is  a reminiscence 
of  the  Amazon  Penthesilea  in  Homer,  just  as  the  fairy  footstep, 
that  left  no  trace  on  sea  or  land,  is  borrowed  from  those  won- 
drous mares  of  Ericthonius  to  whom  Homer  assigns  the  same 
performance.  But  the  copy  far  surpasses  the  original  in  grace 
and  beauty.  Our  English  poets  have  made  free  use  of  this 
fancy  of  the  footsteps  of  beauty:  none  more  sweetly  than 
Jonson  in  his  “Sad  Shepherd,”  where  iEglamour  laments  his 
lost  Earine: 

“ Here  she  was  wont  to  go,  and  here,  and  here — 

Just  where  those  daisies,  pinks,  and  violets  grow; 

The  world  may  find  the  spring  by  following  her, 

For  other  print  her  airy  steps  ne’er  left. 

Her  treading  would  not  bend  a blade  of  grass, 

Or  shake  the  downy  blow-bell  from  his  stalk: 

But  like  the  south-west  wind  she  shot  along. 

And  where  she  went  the  flowers  took  thickest  root, 

As  she  had  sowed  them  with  her  odorous  foot.” 

— “The  Sad  Shepherd,”  Act  I.  sc.  1. 


128 


VIRGIL. 


across  the  stream,  though  swollen  by  winter  torrents, 
were  easy  for  himself:  but  how  to  carry  his  child? 
With  brief  prayer  and  vow  to  the  huntress  Diana,  he 
tied  her  to  a spear,  and  threw  her  across.  The  child 
alighted  safety  on  the  other  side,  and  the  father  fol- 
lowed. Fed  on  mares’  milk,  and  exercised  from  in- 
fancy in  the  use  of  the  bow,  Camilla  had  grown  up  in 
the  forest,  vowTed  to  maidenhood  and  to  Diana. 


Chapter  IX. 

AENEAS  MAKES  ALLIANCE  WITH  EVANDER. 

The  turn  of  events  gives  the  Trojan  chief  much 
natural  disquiet.  All  Latium  is  in  arms  against  his  lit- 
tle force  of  adventurers.  He  lies  down  within  his  lines 
to  a disturbed  and  anxious  rest,  where  he  has  a remark- 
able vision.  A figure  rises,  wrapped  in  a gray  mantle, 
with  his  brows  crowned  with  reed.  It  is  “Father 
Tiber,”  the  tutelary  genius  of  the  Rome  that  shall  be. 
He  bids  his  visitor  be  of  good  cheer:  his  coming  has 
been  long  looked  for.  He  renews,  for  his  encourage- 
ment, the  old  oracle  of  Anchises: 

“ On  woody  banks  before  your  eye 
A thirty-farrowed  sow  shall  lie, 

Her  whole  white  length  on  earth  stretched  out, 

Her  young,  as  white,  her  teats  about, 

Sign  that  when  thirty  years  come  round 
‘ White  Alba  ’ shall  Ascanius  found.” 

He  will  find  allies,  too,  within  reach.  A colony  from 
Arcadia  have  migrated  to  Italy  under  their  king  Evan- 
der,  and  have  founded  in  the  neighboring  mountains 
a city  called  Pallanteum.  He  will  reach  the  place  by 


ALLIANCE  WITH  EVANDER. 


129 


sailing  up  the  stream,  and  from  them,  ever  at  feud 
with  their  Latian  neighbors,  he  will  get  the  aid  he  re- 
quires. 

AEneas  wakes  from  sleep,  arms  the  crews  of  two  of 
his  galleys,  and  begins  his  voyage  up  the  course  of  the 
friendly  Tiber,  who  purposely  calms  his  waves  and 
moderates  his  current.  The  sow  with  her  thirty 
young  is  soon  found,  and  duly  sacrificed,  as  the  river- 
genius  has  warned  him,  to  propitiate  the  wrath  of 
Juno.  Evander,  with  his  son  Pallas  and  all  his 
people,  is  keeping  high  festival  to  Hercules,  when  the 
masts  of  the  Trojan  galleys  are  suddenly  seen  among 
the  trees  as  they  turn  a bend  of  the  river.  The 
strangers  are  hailed  by  Pallas;  and  iEneas,  bearing  in 
his  hand  the  olive-bough  of  a suppliant,  is  led  by  the 
y&ung  chief  before  his  father.  In  a well-studied  speech 
be  claims  kindred  with  the  Arcadian  hero,  albeit  a 
Trojan  and  Greek  might  at  first  sight  seem  natural 
enemies.  Dardanus  of  Troy  traced  his  descent  from 
Atlas — Evander’s  genealogy  goes  back  to  the  same  great 
ancestor.  Their  mutual  enmity  with  the  Latians  should 
be  also  a bond  of  union:  and  lo!  iEneas  has  shown 
his  goodwill  and  confidence  in  thus  placing  himself 
fearlessly  in  Evander’s  power.  Evander  is  the  Nestor 
of  the  iEneid; — somewhat  given  to  long  stories  and 
reminiscences  of  his  own  youth.  He  had  known  his 
present  visitor’s  father  well,  in  the  years  gone  by,  when 
the  Trojan  court  had  visited  the  country  of  Priam’s 
sister  HesionA 

“ A boy  was  I,  a stripling  lad, 

My  cheek  with  youth’s  first  blossom  clad; 

I gazed  at  Priam  and  his  train 
Of  Trojan  lords,  and  gazed  again : 

But  great  Anchises^ princely  tall, 

Was  more  than  Priam,  more  than  all. 


130 


VIRGIL. 


With  boyish  zeal  I schemed  and  planned 
To  greet  aie  chief,  and  grasp  his  hand. 

I ventured,  and  with  eager  zest 
To  Pheneus  brought  my  honored  guest. 

A Lycian  quiver  he  bestowed 
At  parting,  with  its  arrowy  load, 

A gold-wrought  scarf,  and  bridle-reins 
Of  gold,  which  Pallas  still  retains.’’ 

He  tells  liis  visitor  also,  at  very  considerable  length, 
the  story  of  Hercules  slaying  the  monster  Cacus,  son 
of  Vulcan,  half  man  and  half  beast,  whose  breath  was 
as  flames  of  fire,  and  whose  diet  was  human  flesh — the 
prototype  of  the  giants  of  later  fiction.  He  points  out 
also  to  his  guest  the  local  features  of  the  country — for 
they  are  standing  on  the  site  which  is  to  be  Rome, 
and  Pallanteum  is  to  become  the  Palatine  mount  of 
future  history.  Whatever  of  mythical  legend  the  poet 
mixed  up  in  his  topography,  he  knew  the  interest 
with  which  his  patrician  audience — for  antiquarianism 
was  almost  as  fashionable  in  the  court  of  the  Caesars 
as  it  is  now — would  listen  while,  by  the  mouth  of 
Evander,  he  dwelt  on  the  old  historic  localities  of 
the  imperial  city:  the  Carmental  gate,  named  after  the 
nymph  who  was  Evander’s  mother;  the  grove  where 
Romulus  in  after  days  made  his  first  “Asylum”  for 
the  motley  band  whom  he  gathered  round  him;  the 
Tarpeian  rock;  the  hill  on  which  was  to  stand  the 
Capitol ; the  Janiculum,  with  its  Saturnian  walls,  the 
key  of  Rome’s  defences.  “ Now” — says  (he  poet,  speak- 
ing in  his  own  person  of  the  glories  of  the  great  city  in 
his  own  day, — 

11  Now  all  is  golden— then  ’twas  all 
O’ergrown  with  trees  and' brushwood  tall. 

E’en  their  rude  hinds  the  s^ot  revered: 


ALLIANCE  WITH  EVANDER. 


131 


Here  in  this  grove,  these  wooded  steeps, 

Some  God  unknown  his  mansion  keeps; 

Arcadia’s  children  deem 
Their  eyes  have  looked  on  Jove’s  own  form, 

When  oft  he  summons  cloud  and  storm, 

And  seen  his  aegis  gleam.” 

A league  is  made  between  the  Trojans  and  their  new 
friends.  King  Evander  confesses  that  his  own  power 
is  small,  but  iEneas  has  arrived  at  a fortunate  con- 
juncture. The  Etruscans  of  Agylla,  who  have  just 
expelled  their  tyrant  Mezentius  for  his  cruelties,  have 
determined  to  pursue  him  to  the  death.  But  they 
have  been  warned  by  their  soothsayer  to  choose  a 
foreign  leader;  and  here  they  are  at  the  gates  of 
Pallanteum,  come  to  beseech  Evander  to  head  their 
expedition.  He  is  himself  too  old — his  son  Pallas  too 
inexperienced;  he  at  once  presents  to  them  iEneas  as 
a heaven-sent  leader.  The  omens  are  all  favorable, 
and  both  troops  and  commander  are  well  pleased. 
iEneas  selects  the  best  of  his  crew,  whom  Evander 
furnishes  with  war-horses;  the  rest  he  sends  back  in 
the  galleys  to  bear  the  tidings  of  his  own  movements 
to  his  son  lulus,  and  to  charge  him  and  the  Trojans  to 
keep  close  within  their  rampart,  in  case  of  attack  during 
his  absence.  Taking  command  of  his  Etruscan  allies, 
and  followed  by  four  hundred  Arcadian  horse  under 
the  young  Pallas,  whom  his  father  gladly  sends,  as  the 
youths  of  noble  houses  were  sent  in  the  days  of  knight- 
hood, to  learn  the  art  of  war  under  so  great  a captain, 
iEneas  sets  out  on  his  march  for  Turnus’s  capital.  The 
old  king  does  not  part  from  his  son  without  sad  misgiv- 
ings; he  has  trusted  iEneas  with  more  than  his  life. 

Venus  has  not  been  neglectful  of  her  son.  She  lias 
persuaded  Vulcan  to  forge  for  him  weapons  and  aimor 


132 


VIRGIL . 


of  sucli  sort  as  only  the  immortal  smith  can  make.  Tlpj 
fire-god  can  never  resist  her  blandishments;  and  he  goes 
down  to  the  forge  where  the  Cyclops  are  ever  at  work, 
in  the  caverns  beneath  the  Lipari  Islands,  off  the  coast 
of  Sicily.  There  is  much  business  in  hand  there  already. 
Some  of  the  one-eyed  workmen  are  forging  bolts  for 
Jupiter,  composed  of  four  elements, — 

w Three  rays  they  took  of  forky  hail, 

Of  watery  cloud  three  rays, 

Three  of  the  winged  southern  gale, 

Three  of  the  ruddy  blaze.”* 

Some  are  finishing  a war-chariot  for  Mars;  others  are 
shaping  an  segis  for  Minerva — a shield  of  dragon’s  scales 
and  rings  of  gold.  But  their  master  bids  them  put  all 
these  tasks  aside;  War,  and  Wisdom,  and  even  Govern- 
ment itself,  must  be  content  to  come  to  a standstill, 
until  the  behests  of  Beauty  have  been  obeyed. 

The  idea  of  the  Shield  of  BSneas,  which  Venus  comes 
and  lays  before  him  while  he  sleeps,  is  of  course  bor- 
rowed directly  from  Homer’s  Shield  of  Achilles.  But 
the  working  out  of  it  is  quite  original.  Vulcan’s  sub- 
ject, in  this  case,  is  not,  as  in  the  Shield  of  the  Iliad,  an 
epitome  of  human  life,  but  a prophetic  history  of  Rome. 
The  whole  passage  in  which  it  is  elaborately  described 
is  of  remarkable  beauty  even  to  our  modern  taste,  and 
upon  a Roman’s  ear  and  imagination  must  have  had  a 
wonderful  effect.  The  story  is  told  in  eight  (or  perhaps 
nine)  compartments,  filled  with  the  leading  events  in  the 
great  city’s  existence.  The  two  first  contain  the  birth 
of  Romulus,  and  the  union  of  the  Romans  with  the 
Sabines,  which  began  with  the  seizure  of  the  Sabine 
women  : 

* The  thunderbolt  is  usually  represented  on  ancient  coins  and 
medallions  with  twelve  rays. 


ALLIANCE  WITH  EVANDER 


133 


“There  too  the  mother- wolf  he  made 
In  Mars’s  cave  supinely  laid: 

Around  her  udders  undismayed 
The  gamesome  infants  hung, 

While  she,  her  loose  neck  backward  thrown, 
Caressed  them  fondly,  one  by  one, 

And  shaped  them  with  her  tongue. 

Hard  by,  the  towers  of  Rome  he  drew, 

And  Sabine  maids  in  public  view 
Snatched  ’mid  the  Circus  games: 

So  ’twixt  the  fierce  Romulean  brood 
And  Tatius  with  his  Cures  rude 
A sudden  war  upflames. 

And  now  the  kings,  their  conflict  o’er, 

Stand  up  in  arms  Jove’s  shrine  before, 

From  goblets  pour  the  sacred  wine, 

And  make  their  peace  o’er  bleeding  swine.” 

The  doom  of  Mettius  the  Alban,  and  the  keeping  of  the 
Tiber  bridge  by  Horatius  against  Lars  Porsena,  occupy 
the  two  next  compartments.  Next  comes  the  defence 
of  the  Capitol  against  the  Cauls  by  Manlius: 

“ A silver  goose  in  gilded  walls 
With  flapping  wings  announced  the  Gauls; 

And  through  the  wood  the  invaders  crept, 

And  climbed  the  height  while  others  slept. 

Golden  their  hair  on  head  and  chin: 

Gold  collars  deck  their  milk-white  skin: 

Short  cloaks  with  colors  checked 
Shine  on  their  backs:  two  spears  each  wields 
Of  Alpine  make:  and  oblong  shields 
Their  brawny  limbs  protect.” 

In  the  succeeding  compartments  are  wrought  the 
procession  of  Ihe  Salii  with  the  sacred  shields,  and  the 
regions  of  the  world  below,  where  Catiline  lies  in  tor- 
ment, while  Cato  has  his  portion  with  the  just.  And 
within  the  whole,  round  the  umbo  or  boss  of  the  shield, 
there  runs  a sea  of  molten  gold  in  which  sport  silver 


134 


VIRGIL. 


dolphins,  framing  the  centre  design — the  glories  of  Au- 
gustus: 

“ There  in  the  midmost  meet  the  s'ght 
The  embattled  fleets,  the  Actian  fight: 

Leucate  flames  with  warlike  show, 

And  golden -red  the  billows  glow. 

Here  Caesar,  leading  from  their  home 
The  fathers,  people,  gods  of  Rome, 

Stands  on  the  lofty  stern: 

The  constellation  of  his  sire 
Beams  o’er  his  head,  and  tongues  of  fire 
About  his  temples  burn, 

With  favoring  Gods  and  winds  to  speed 
Agrippa  forms  his  line: 

The  golden  beaks,  war’s  proudest  meed, 

High  on  his  forehead  shine. 

There,  with  barbaric  troops  increased, 

Antonius,  from  the  vanquished  East, 

And  distant  Red-sea  side, 

To  battle  drags  the  Bactrian  bands 
And  Egypt;  and  behind  him  stands 
(Foul  shame!)  the  Egyptian  bride.” 

There  the  gods  of  Rome — conspicuous  amongst  whom 
is  the  archer  Apollo,  the  tutelary  deity  of  the  house  of 
Caesar — put  to  flight  the  dog-headed  Anubis,  and  the 
other  monstrous  gods  of  Egypt.  There,  too,  is  blazoned 
the  “triple  triumph’’  of  Augustus,  graced  by  a long 
procession  of  captives  of  all  tribes,  from  Scythia  to  the 
Euphrates. 

Such  legends  traced  on  Vulcan’s  shield 
The  wondering  chief  surveys: 

On  truth  in  symbol  half  revealed 
He  feeds  his  hungry  gaze, 

And  high  upon  his  shoulders  rears 

The  fame  and  fates  of  unborn  years.” 


TURNUS  ATTACKS  TEE  TROJANS.  135 


Chapter  X. 

TURNUS  ATTACKS  THE  TROJAN  ENCAMPMENT. 

^Eneas  bad  been  right  in  his  forebodings  of  danger. 
Turnus  has  heard  of  the  chief’s  absence,  and  takes  ad- 
vantage of  it  to  lead  his  force  at  once  against  the  new- 
built  fortification  in  which  the  rest  of  the  Trojans  lie. 
His  first  attempt  is  to  burn  their  galleys,  where  they  lie 
drawn  ashore  on  the  river-bank,  close  to  their  lines. 
But  the  ships  are  built  of  the  sacred  pines  of  Ida,  the 
special  favorites  of  the  great  goddess  Cybele;  and  she 
has  endued  them,  by  favor  of  Jupiter,  with  the  power 
of  transformation  into  sea-nymphs  when  their  work  is 
done.  No  sooner  do  the  torches  of  the  enemy  touch 
them  than  they  slide  off  into  the  water,  and  in  their 
new  shape  float  out  to  sea.  Even  this  portent  does  not 
scare  the  leader  of  the  Rutuli.  “Lo!”  he  cries — 
“Heaven  takes  from  our  enemies  even  their  hopes  of 
flight!”  He  does  but  draw  his  league  all  the  closer 
round  the  Trojan  lines.  Throughout  the  night  the 
watch-fires  blaze  at  close  intervals,  and  captains  of  the 
guard,  each  with  a hundred  men,  are  set  at  their  several 
posts  to  prevent  the  escape  of  the  prey  before  the  gen- 
eral attack  which  is  ordered  for  the  morning. 

But  the  Rutulian  chieftains  grow  weary  of  a monot- 
onous duty.  They  have  store  of  wine  in  their  camp, 
and  they  bring  it  out  to  cheer  their  night-watch.  The 
sounds  of  noisy  revelry  soon  rise  from  every  station, 
until,  as  the  revellers  are  gradually  overpowered  by 
sleep,  all  is  lulled  into  unusual  silence. 

Two  Trojan  sentinels  have  watched  anxiously  every 
sound  and  movement  in  the  enemy’s  lines.  They  are 


136 


VIRGIL. 


Nisus  and  bis  young  friend  Euryalus, — late  among  the 
competitors  in  the  foot-race — inseparable  in  peace  or 
war.  Nisus  sees,  as  he  thinks,  an  opportunity  for 
stealing  through  the  Rutulian  guards,  and  bearing 
news  to  HSneas  at  Pallanteum  of  the  peril  in  which 
his  son  and  his  companions  lie.  He  is  a keen  sports- 
man, and  knows  the  forest  by-paths  well.  He,  con- 
fides his  design  to  Euryalus,  but  has  no  notion  of  taking 
the  youth  with  him  to  share  the  danger.  He.  on  the 
other  hand,  insists  upon  accompanying  his  friend. 
The  consent  of  lulus  and  his  elder  counsellors  is 
readily  obtained.  Let  them  but  bring  back  iEneas 
to  the  rescue,  and  no  rewards  and  honors  shall  be  too 
great  for  the  pair.  Turnus’s  horse  and  armor,  Lati- 
nus’s  royal  demesne,  captives  of  price,  shall  be  the 
guerdon  of  Nisus:  for  Euryalus, — the  prince  will  adopt 
him  henceforth  as  his  personal  esquire  and  companion 
in  arms.  One  only  request  the  youth  has  to  make. 
He  has  an  aged  mother  in  the  camp — the  only  one  of 
the  elder  matrons  who  refused  to  be  left  in  safety  with 
Acestes  in  Sicily,  and  whom  no  dangers  could  separate 
from  her  son.  Will  the  prince  promise  her  solace  and 
protection,  should  harm  befall  Euryalus  on  the  way? 
The  answer  of  lulus  is  given  in  tears;  he  has  no  mother 
left,  and  the  mother  of  Euryalus  shall  be  to  him  as  his 
own.  He  girds  the  youth  with  the  sword  from  his  own 
side,  and  the  friends  set  out  upon  their  perilous  errand, 
escorted  to  the  gates  by  the  Trojan  captains  with 
prayers  and  blessings. 

The  enterprise  might  have  succeeded,  had  not  the 
two  friends  been  tempted,  by  the  helpless  state  in 
which  they  found  the  Rutulian  camp,  to  slaughter 
their  sleeping  enemies  as  they  passed.  Rhamnes  and 
Remus — names  to  be  borne  hereafter  by  more  historic 


TURNUS  ATTACKS  THE  TROJANS.  137 


actors  in  the  history  of  Rome — with  a crowd  of  victims 
of  lesser  note,  fall  by  the  swords  of  Nisus  and  his  com- 
panion. Euryalus  even  stops,  with  a young  man’s 
vanity,  to  put  on  the  glittering  belt  which  he  has 
stripped  from  one  of  his  victims,  and  the  helmet  of 
the  sleeping  Messapus.  Thus  precious  time  is  lost,  and 
the  moonlight  streams  upon  them  as  they  clear  the 
Rutulian  lines,  and  take  the  path,  which  Nisus  knows, 
for  Pallanteum. 

A detachment  of  the  enemy’s  cavalry  is  on  the  march 
to  join  Turnus.  The  glimmer  of  the  moonlight  on 
Euryalus’s  helmet — his  new  prize — betrays  the  friends 
as  they  try  to  steal  by,  and  they  are  challenged  at  once 
by  Yolscens,  the  commander.  They  fly  to  the  neigh- 
boring wood;  but  the  horsemen  surround  it,  and  though 
Nisus  escapes  them,  it  is  only  to  And  that  his  friend  has 
fallen  into  their  hands.  He  rushes  back,  and  in  the 
wild  hope  of  effecting  a rescue,  hides  himself  in  the 
thicket,  whence  he  launches  two  spears  with  fatal 
effect  upon  the  party  who  are  dragging  along  their 
prisoner.  Enraged  at  the  sudden  attack,  and  seeing  no 
enemy  in  the  darkness,  Yolscens  lays  hold  upon  Eurya- 
lus, and  vows  revenge.  Nisus  rushes  from  his  cover, 
and  implores  them  to  turn  their  swords  on  him,  and  to 
spare  a youth  whose  only  crime  has  been  his  friendship. 

*■  In  vain  he  spoke:  the  sword,  fierce  driven, 

That  alabaster  breast  had  riven. 

Down  falls  Euryalus,  and  lies 
In  death’s  enthralling  agonies: 

Blood  trickles  o’er  his  limbs  of  snow; 

His  head  sinks  gradually  low: 

Thus,  severed  by  the  ruthless  plough. 

Dim  fades  a purple  flower: 

Their  weary  necks  so  poppies  bow, 

O’erladen  by  the  shower. 


138 


VIRGIL. 


But  Nisus  on  tbe  midmost  flies, 

With  Volscens,  Volscens  in  his  eyes: 

In  clouds  the  warriors  round  him  rise, 

Thick  hailing  blow  on  blow: 

Yet  on  he  bears,  no  stint,  no  stay; 

Like  thunderbolt  his  falchion’s  sway: 

Till  as  for  aid  the  Rutule  shrieks 
Plunged  in  his  throat  the  weapon  reeks: 

The  dying  hand  has  reft  away 
The  lifeblood  of  its  foe. 

Then,  pierced  to  death,  asleep  he  fell 
On  the  dead  breast  he  loved  so  well.” 

With  tbe  first  dawn  Turnus  leads  bis  forces  to  tbe 
attack — tbe  beads  of  Nisus  and  Euryalus  borne  in  front 
upon  tbe  points  of  spears,  so  savage  is  tbe  Rutu- 
lian  at  tbe  slaughter  made  by  them  amongst  bis  sleep- 
ing comrades.  Tbe  mother  of  Euryalus  lias  beard  tbe 
news,  and  sees  tbe  ghastly  trophies  from  tbe  ramparts, 
lulus  performs  bis  promise,  and  the  frantic  woman  is, 
under  bis  personal  directions,  tenderly  removed.  He 
himself  becomes  tbe  hero  of  tbe  day.  Tbe  archer's 
craft,  bis  love  of  which  bad  led  to  tbe  feud  with  tbe 
Latians,  is  turned  to  good  service  in  tbe  defence  of  tbe 
camp.  Numanus,  a brother-in-law  of  Turnus,  is  loudly 
taunting  tbe  Trojans  in  front  of  their  lines: 

“ Twice  captured  Phrygians ! to  be  pent 
Once  more  in  leaguered  battlement, 

And  plant  unblushingly  between 
Yourselves  and  death  a stony  screen! 

Lo,  these  the  men  that  draw  their  swords 
To  part  our  ladies  from  their  lords ! 

What  god,  what  madness  brings  you  here 
To  taste  of  our  Italian  cheer? 

No  proud  Atridae  leads  our  vans: 

No  false  Ulysses  talks  and  plans: 

E’en  from  the  birth  a hardy  brood, 

We  take  our  infants  to  the  flood. 


TURN  US  ATTACKS  THE  TROJANS,  139 


And  fortify  their  tender  mould 
With  icy  wave  and  ruthless  cold. 

Early  and  late  our  sturdy  boys 

Seek  through  the  woods  a hunter’s  joys: 

Their  pastime  is  to  tame  the  steed, 

To  bend  the  bow  and  launch  the  reed. 

Our  youth,  to  scanty  fare  inured, 

Made  strong  by  labor  oft  endured, 

Subdue  the  soil  with  spade  and  rake, 

Or  city  walls  with  battle  shake. 

Through  life  we  grasp  our  trusty  spear: 

It  strikes  the  foe,  it  goads  the  steer: 

Age  cannot  chill  our  valor:  no. 

The  helmet  sits  on  locks  of  snow ; 

And  still  we  love  to  store  our  prey, 

And  eat  the  fruits  our  arms  purvey. 

You  flaunt  yonr  robes  in  all  men’s  eyes. 

Your  saffron  and  your  purple  dyes, 

Recline  on  downy  couch,  or  weave 
The  dreamy  dance  from  morn  to  eve: 

Sleeved  tunics  guard  your  tender  skins, 

And  ribboned  mitres  prop  your  chins. 

Phrygians! — nay  rather  Phrygian  fair! 

Hence,  to  your  Dindymus  repair! 

Go  where  the  flute’s  congenial  throat 
Shrieks  through  two  doors  its  slender  note. 

Where  pipe  and  cymbal  call  the  crew: 

These  are  the  instruments  for  you: 

Leave  men,  like  us,  in  arms  to  deal, 

Nor  bruise  your  lily  hands  with  steel.” 

lulus,  after  brief  prayer  to  Jupiter,  sends  an  arrow 
through  the  boaster’s  temples.  But  Apollo,  taking  the 
shape  of  the  boy’s  guardian,  Butes,  warns  him  to  be 
content  with  this  first  triumph:  such  weapons,  says  he 
of  the  silver  bow,  with  that  jealousy  of  mortals  com- 
mon to  all  pagan  divinities,  are  not  for  boys. 

Attack  and  defence  are  maintained  vigorously  on 
either  side.  Turnus  is  everywhere,  dealing  death  where 
he  comes.  Mezentius,  the  infidel,  tries  to  fire  the  pali- 


140 


VIRGIL. 


sade:  Messapus,  “the  horse-tamer,”  calls  for  ladders  to 
scale  it.  A detachment  of  Yolscians  form  a “ tortoise,” 
by  linking  their  shields  like  a pent-house  over  tlieir 
heads,  and  under  this  cover  try  to  plant  their  ladders; 
but  the  Trojans  hoist  a huge  rock  aloft,  and  dash  it 
down  with  murderous  effect  upon  the  roof  of  shields, 
crushing  the  bearers  underneath.  A tall  wooden  flank- 
ing-tower  is  set  on  fire  by  Turnus,  and  falls  over,  with 
its  defenders,  among  the  enemy.  Two  only  survive  the 
fall,  one  of  whom — a slave-born  warrior,  who  bears  a 
blank  shield — flings  himself  into  the  Rutulian  ranks, 
and  dies  there  fighting  against  overwhelming  numbers. 
The  other,  Lycus,  a swift  and  active  runner,  reaches 
the  rampart  of  the  intrenchment,  and  nearly  succeeds 
in  climbing  over  amongst  his  friends,  wdien  Turnus 
grasps  him  and  bears  him  off,  in  spite  of  the  missiles 
showered  down  by  his  sympathizing  comrades. 

Pandarus  and  Bitias,  two  brothers  of  gigantic  stature, 
have  charge  of  one  of  the  gateways  of  the  intrenched 
camp.  They  throw  the  double  gates  wide  open,  and 
take  their  stand,  one  on  either  side,  within.  Fast  as 
the  more  venturous  spirits  among  the  enemy  rush 
through,  they  are  either  felled  by  the  giant  warders, 
•Dr,  if  they  escape  these  first,  are  slain  inside  by  the  other 
Trojans,  who  even  carry  the  battle  outside  the  gates. 
Word  comes  to  Turnus  of  the  increasing  boldness  of 
the  enemy.  He  rushes  to  the  rescue,  slays  right  and 
left,  and  brings  Bitias  to  the  ground  by  hurling  at  him 
a huge  fularica — a spear  used  in  the  great  catapults 
■which  formed  the  artillery  of  those  days.  His  brother 
Pandarus  by  main  strength  closes  the  great  gates,  shut- 
ting out  some  of  his  unfortunate  friends  as  well  as  his 
jnemies,  and  shutting  in,  to  the  dismay  of  the  Trojans, 
Iheir  terrible  enemy.  When  he  sees  Turnus,  however, 


TURN  US  ATTACKS  THE  TROJANS.  141 


he  rushes  upon  him  to  avenge  his  brother’s  death ; but 
the  Rutulian  cleaves  him  with  his  keen  falchion  down 
to  the  chin.  Then  lie  turns  on  the  dismayed  defenders, 
and  smites  them  right  and  left.  Had  he  but  bethought 
himself  then  to  open  the  gates  once  more,  and  let  his 
comrades  in,  so  cowed  were  the  Trojans  at  the  moment 
that  their  defeat  was  certain.  But  all  his  heart  is  set 
on  slaughter,  and  the  Trojans,  rallied  by  Mnestheus 
(the  hero  of  the  galley-race),  soon  find  out  that  he  is 
'Jone.  Nevertheless  he  fights  his  way  gallantly  towards 
lie  river. 

“ The  Trojans  follow,  shouting  loud, 

And  closer  still  and  closer  crowd. 

So  when  the  gathering  swains  assail 
A lion  with  their  brazen  hail, 

He,  glaring  rage,  begins  to  quail, 

And  sullenly  departs: 

For  shame  his  back  he  will  not  turn, 

Yet  dares  not,  howsoe’er  he  yearn, 

To  charge  their  serried  darts. 

So  Turnus  lingeringly  retires, 

And  glows  with  ineffectual  fires. 

Twice  on  the  foe  e’en  then  he  falls, 

Twice  routs  and  drives  them  round  the  walls: 

But  from  the  camp  in  swarms  they  pour, 

Nor  Juno  dares  to  help  him  more. 

At  length,  accoutred  as  he  stood, 

Headlong  he  plunged  into  the  flood. 

The  yellow  flood  the  charge  received, 

With  buoyant  tide  his  weight  upheaved, 

And  cleansing  off  the  encrusted  gore, 

Returned  him  to  his  friends  once  more.” 


142 


VIRGIL . 


Chapter  XI. 

THE  DEATH  OF  PALLAS. 

The  scene  changes  to  Olympus,  where  Jupiter  holds 
a council  of  the  gods.  He  is  as  much  troubled  as  in 
the  Iliad  with  the  dissensions  in  his  own  court,  and 
holds  the  balance  with  difficulty  between  his  queen  and 
his  daughter,  each  unscrupulous  in  their  partisanship. 
Venus  complains  to  him  bitterly  of  the  peril  in  which 
her  son  JSneas  stands,  by  reason  of  Juno’s  machina- 
tions. That  goddess  replies,  with  considerable  show  of 
reason,  that  iEneas  has  brought  his  troubles  upon  him- 
self; that  Latin  us  and  Turnus  and  Lavinia  were  all 
going  on  peacefully  before  he  came;  and  that — if  the 
whole  history  of  the  Trojans  must  needs  be  discussed 
again — Venus  herself,  by  her  instrument  Helen,  was 
the  mother  of  all  the  mischief.  The  king  of  the  gods 
somewhat  loses  patience,  and  swears  by  the  great  river 
of  Styx,  with  the  awful  nod  which  shakes  Olympus, 
that  Trojan  and  Rutulian  shall  even  fight  it  out,  and 
the  Fates  shall  decide  the  question.  So  he  dissolves 
the  Olympian  convocation. 

The  fight  at  the  Trojan  encampment  is  renewed  in 
the  morning  as  fiercely  as  ever.  But  succors  are  on 
their  way.  The  ships  of  the  Etruscan  leader  Ta*ehon 
— the  name  which  future  kings  of  Rome  were  to  bear 
with  little  alteration — have  been  sailing  all  night  down 
the  Tyrrhenian  Sea,  under  their  new-found  chief  Hlineas. 
His  galley  leads  the  van;  and  with  him  in  the  stern — 
for  he  takes  the  helm  himself — sits  young  Pallas,  hear- 
ing him  tell  of  the  great  deeds  of  old.  The  poet  gives 
us  something  like  a muster  roll  of  the  Etruscan  chiefs 


THE  DEATH  OF  PALLAS. 


143 


and  their  followings;  more  interesting  perhaps  to  the 
ear  of  a Roman,  who  would  catcli  up  here  and  there 
some  historical  allusion  to  a place  or  family  with  which 
he  claimed  some  connection,  than  to  the  modern  reader, 
who  can  have  no  such  sympathies.  He  gives  us,  too, 
tlu*  figure-heads  from  which  the  ships  of  the  most  noted 
captains  took  their  names:  the  Tiger — a favorite,  it 
would  seem,  to  our  English  nautical  taste  even  down  to 
the  present  day — the  Centaur,  the  Apollo,  the  Triton, 
the  Mincius — the  last-named  from  the  river  that  flowed 
by  Virgil's  own  town  of  Mantua, — 

" Fair  town  1 her  sons  of  high  degree, 

Though  not  unmixed  their  blood; 

Three  races  swell  the  mingled  stream: 

Four  states  from  each  derive  their  birth: 

Herself  among  them  sits  supreme, 

Her  Tuscan  blood  her  chief est  worth.” 

HLneas  has  a strange  rencontre  in  his  night- voyage. 
Suddenty  there  rises  round  his  galley  a circle  of  water- 
nymphs — they  are  his  own  vessels,  thus  transformed, 
and  their  errand  is  to  warn  him  of  the  danger  in  which 
lulus  and  his  people  lie.  The  sight  which  meets  his 
eyes  as  he  enters  the  Tiber  at  daybreak  confirms  their 
tidings:  he  sees  the  camp  surrounded  by  enemies. 
Standing  high  upon  his  deck,  he  raises  aloft  the 
wondrous  shield.  The  Trojans  recognize  in  the  signal 
the  arrival  of  the  help  they  so  sorely  need,  and  welcome 
it  with  prolonged  shouts.  Then  their  enemies  note  it 
also, — and  the  fight  grows  fiercer  still.  Tarchon — who 
seems  to  act  as  captain  of  the  fleet  under  iEneas  as 
admiral — looks  out  a good  place  to  beach  the  galleys, 
bids  the  men  give  way  with  a will,  and  runs  them  well 
up,  the  forepart  high  and  dry — all  except  the  gallant 


144 


VIRGIL. 


captain  himself,  whose  vessel  breaks  her  back  and  goes 
to  pieces. 

Turnus  has  left  the  command  of  the  storming-party 
to  his  lieutenants,  and  gone  down  himself  with  a picked 
force  to  oppose  Eneas’s  landing.  The  Arcadian  con- 
tingent, unused  to  fighting  on  foot  and  half  in  the  water, 
get  into  confusion,  and  turn.  Young  Pallas  gallantly 
rallies  them,  for  the  honor  of  his  countrymen.  He 
himself  wins  his  spurs,  in  this  his  first  field,  by  deeds 
which  would  become  iEneas  himself.  One  brief  epi- 
sode in  his  exploits  is  pathetic  enough.  There  are  fight- 
ing on  the  Rutulian  side  the  twin-brothers  Thymber  and 
Larides : 

“ So  like,  the  sweet  confusion  e’en 
Their  parents’  eyes  betrayed ; 

But  Pallas  twin  and  twin  between 
Has  cruel  difference  made ; 

For  Thymber’s  head  the  steel  has  shorn; 

Larides’  severed  hand  forlorn 
Feels  blindly  for  its  lord: 

The  quivering  fingers,  half  alive, 

Twitch  with  convulsive  gripe,  and  strive 
To  close  upon  the  sword.” 

Young  Lausus,  the  son  of  the  tyrant  Mezentius,  is 
leading  his  men  against  PrJlas,  when  a greater  soldier 
interposes  between  the  two  young  heroes.  Turnus 
comes,  and  Pallas  meets  him  eagerly — yet  not  with- 
out full  consciousness  of  the  inequality  of  the  combat. 
He  hurls  his  spear,  so  strongly  and  truly  that  it  pene- 
trates through  Turnus’s  shield,  and  slightly  grazes  his 
body.  Then  Turnus  launches  his  weapon  in  return, 
and  it  goes  right  through  the  metal  plates  and  tough 
ox-hide  of  the  shield,  and  through  the  corselet  of  Pallas, 
deep  into  his  breast,  and  the  young  prince  falls  to  the 
ground  writhing  in  his  dying  agony.  Turnus  stands 


THE  DEATH  OF  PALLAS. 


145 


astride  of  the  corpse,  and  shouts  triumphantly  to  the 
discomfited  Arcadians.  Yet  there  is  something  gener- 
ous, according  to  the  fierce  code  of  the  times,  in  his 
treatment  of  his  dead  enemy;  he  neither  strips  the 
armor,  nor  makes  any  attempt  to  prevent  the  Arca- 
dians from  carrying  off  the  body.  He  bids  them  bear 
it  home  to  King  Evander  for  burial;  only  with  a warn- 
ing  as  to  what  fate  awaits  the  allies  of  the  foreigner: 

“ Who  to  iEneas  plays  the  host, 

Must  square  the  glory  with  the  cost.” 

One  trophy  lie  takes  from  the  person  of  the  dead 
prince — a belt  richly  embroidered  in  gold  with  the 
tale  of  the  daughters  of  Danaus.  He  girds  it  on  over 
his  armor,  unconscious  of  the  influence  it  will  have 
upon  his  own  fate. 

HEneas,  in  a different  quarter  of  the  field,  hears  of 
the  death  of  his  young  esquire,  and  furiously  hews  his 
way  towards  Turnus.  All  who  cross  his  path,  veteran 
chiefs  and  young  aspirants  to  glory,  alike  go  down  be- 
fore him,  and  no  appeal  for  mercy  checks  his  hand. 
Eight  prisoners  he  takes  alive;  but  only  with  the  intent 
to  slay  them  as  victims  at  the  funeral  pile  of  Pallas. 
But  the  rival  champions  do  not  meet  as  yet.  Juno, 
fearing  the  issue  of  an  encounter  with  HEneas  in  his 
present  mood,  cheats  the  eyes  of  Turnus  with  a phan- 
tom in  his  enemy’s  shape.  When  Turnus  meets  it  in 
the  fight,  the  shape  turns  and  flies  towards  the  ships, 
pursued  by  him  with  bitter  taunts  on  Trojan  cowardice. 
One  galley  has  her  gangway  down,  and  the  false  HEneas 
takes  refuge  on  board.  Turnus  follows;  when  the 
moorings  are  loosed  by  an  invisible  hand,  the  galley 
floats  down  stream,  and  the  Ritulian,  raving  and  half- 
determined  to  end  his  disgrace  by  suicide  when  he  finds 


146 


VIRGIL. 


out  how  he  has  been  cheated,  is  swept  along  the  coast 
to  his  own  town  of  Ardea. 

Mezentius  takes  his  place,  and,  seconded  by  his  son 
Lausus,  spreads  slaughter  amongst  the  Trojan  ranks. 
But  a spear  cast  by  the  strong  hand  of  iEneas  lodges  in 
the  groin  of  the  father,  and  the  son  gallantly  rushes  for- 
ward to  cover  his  retreat.  iEneas  warns  the  youth  ** 
stand  back — some  thought,  it  may  be,  of  Pallas  makes 
him  unwilling  to  take  the  younger  life;  but  Lausus 
dares  his  fate,  and  the  Trojan  falchion,  driven  home 
through  his  light  shield  and  broidered  vest— 

“The  vest  his  mother  wove  with  gold  ” — 

reaches  the  young  chief’s  heart.  iEneas  can  be  generous 
too.  He  will  not  strip  the  body;  nay,  he  chides  the 
cowardice  of  Lausus’s  comrades,  who  hesitate  to  lift 
the  dying  youth,  and  himself  raises  him  carefully  from 
the  ground,  and  gives  him  what  comfort  may  be  gath- 
ered from  the  fact  that  he  has  met  his  death  “ at  ^Eneas’s 
hand.” 

Mezentius  hears  of  the  death  of  his  son  as  he  lies  by 
the  river-bank  bathing  his  wound.  With  a cry  of  agony 
the  father  bewails  his  own  crimes,  which  had  thus 
brought  death  upon  his  innocent  son.  Crippled  as  he 
is,  he  calls  for  his  good  horse  Ithaebus,  who  has  ever 
hitherto  borne  him  home  victor  from  the  battle.  To-day 
they  two  will  carry  home  the  head  of  iEneas,  or  fall 
together.  He  charges  desperately  upon  the  Trojan,  who 
is  right  glad  to  meet  him.  Thrice  he  wheels  his  horse 
round  his  wary  enemy,  hurling  javelin  after  javelin, 
which  the  Yulcanian  shield  receives  on  its  broad  cir- 
cumference, and  retains  until  it  looks,  in  the  poet’s  lan- 
guage, like  a grove  of  steel.  At  last  iEneas  launches  a 
spear  which  strikes  Mezentius’s  horse  full  in  the  fore- 


THE  DEATH  OF  CAMILLA . 


147 


head,  and  poor  Rhaebus  rears,  and,  rolling  over  in  his 
dying  agonies,  pins  his  master  to  the  ground.  .ZEneas 
rushes  in  upon  the  fallen  champion,  who,  disdaining  to 
ask  quarter,  bares  his  throat  to  the  sword,  and  dies  as 
fearlessly  as  he  has  lived. 


Chapter  XII 

THE  DEATH  OF  CAMILLA. 

^Eneas’s  first  care,  after  raising  a trophy  crowned 
with  the  arms  of  the  slain  Mezentius,  is  to  send  home  to 
Evaiuler  the  body  of  his  son.  A picked  detachment 
escort  it  to  Lauren  turn  with  all  honor,  wrapped  in  robes 
of  gold — embroidered  robes,  wrought  by  the  hands  of 
the  unfortunate  Dido.  The  youth's  charger,  zEthon,  is 
led  behind  the  bier,  and  his  lance  and  helm  are  also 
borne  in  the  procession ; a custom  which  we  have  bor- 
rowed from  the  Romans,  and  retain  to  this  day  in  our 
military  funerals.  iEthon  weeps  copious  tears  for  his 
dead  master;  an  incident  not  so  entirely  due  to  a poet’s 
imagination  as  it  may  seem,  since  the  historian  Sueto- 
nius tells  us  that^some  favorite  horses  of  Julius  Caesar 
showed  the  same  tokens  of  grief,  and  refused  their 
food,  just  before  his  death.  Another  feature  in  the 
obsequies  of  Pallas  is  happily  obsolete;  the  prisoners 
whom  .ZEneas  had  taken  alive  with  this  express  object 
follow  behind  the  corpse,  to  be  sacrificed  at  the  funeral 
pile.  There  was  nothing  horrible  to  the  polished  cour- 
tiers of  Augustus  in  such  a thought.  Even  in  that  age 
of  refinement  and  civilization,  the  emperor  himself, 
after  the  defeat  of  Antony’s  party  at  Perusia,  was  said 
to  have  slaughtered  three  hundred  prisoners  in  honor  of 
the  great  Julius,  to  whom  altars  were  raised  as  a dem4- 


148 


VIRGIL. 


god.  True,  the  story  was  probably  an  invention  of 
political  opponents;  but  the  mere  fact  that  such  a story 
could  be  invented  and  believed  marks  strongly  the 
cruel  temper  of  the  age.  The  old  king  receives  back, 
iu  bitter  grief,  all  that  remains  to  him  of  the  gallant  son 
whom  he  had  so  lately  sent  forth  to  his  first  fatal  field: 
and  he  charges  HSneas,  by  the  mouth  of  the  envoys,  to 
avenge  him  on  liis  son’s  murderer — for  this  he  only 
waits  to  close  his  own  eyes. 

A truce  of  twelve  days  is  agreed  upon  between  the 
armies  for  the  burial  of  their  dead.  The  Latins  have 
meanwhile  sent  an  embassy  to  ask  aid  from  Diomed, 
the  hero  of  the  Trojan  war,  who  has  come  home  and 
settled  in  Italy.  He  is  paying  the  penalty  of  having 
wounded  Venus  in  the  battle  before  Troy,  and  is  not 
allowed  to  reach  his  native  Argolis.  He  warns  the 
ambassadors  that  it  is  not  good  to  war  against  the  race 
from  which  iEncas  comes — he,  for  his  part,  will  have 
no  more  of  it.  At  this  crisis  the  Latins  hold  a council 
of  war.  Their  king  advises  a compromise  with  the 
enemy — a grant  of  land  on  which  to  settle,  or  a new 
equipped  fleet  to  carry  the  fortunes  of  Troy  yet  further 
on.  Then  there  rises  in  the  council  one  Drances,  a 
better  orator  than  warrior,  who  boldly  proposes  to 
give  the  princess  Lavinia  to  the  bridegroom  whom  the 
gods  have  sent.  Or,  let  Turnus  meet  iEneas  in  single 
combat — why  are  the  rest  to  suffer  for  his  pride?  Is  all 
Latium  to  be  steeped  in  blood  that  Turnus  may  have  a 
princess  to  wife?  Turnus  is  not  slow  to  reply.  He 
will  go  forth  to  meet  the  Trojan  willingly — will 
Drances  follow  him? 

Even  while  they  thus  debate,  Hlneas  has  left  his  in* 
trenchments  by  the  Tiber,  and  is  marching  on  the  city. 
The  queen  with  her  daughter  and  the  terrified  women 


THE  DEATH  OF  CAMILLA. 


140 


betake  themselves  to  the  temples,  while  Turnus  sets 
himself  to  marshal  his  allies  for  the  defence.  While 
some  are  left  to  guard  the  walls,  the  whole  force  of 
cavalry  ride  out  to  meet  the  enemy.  His  best  lieuten- 
ant for  this  service  is  the  huntress  Camilla.  She  leads 
her  light  Volscian  horse,  supported  by  Messapus  with 
his  heavier  Latins,  to  meet  the  cavalry  of  HDneas,  while 
Turnus  with  his  squadron  lays  an  ambuscade  for  him  in 
a wooded  valley.  Camilla,  with  her  fair  staff  of  follow- 
ers, Tulla  and  Tarpeia — names  of  ominous  sound  to 
Roman  ears — deals  slaughter  in  the  enemy’s  ranks  in  no 
feminine  fashion. 

“ A Phrygian  mother  mourned  her  son 
For  every  dart  that  flew.” 

But,  fierce  Amazon  as  she  is,  she  is  tempted  by  a 
woman’s  love  of  ornament.  There  is  a Trojan,  one 
Chlorus,  priest  as  well  as  man  at-arms,  conspicuous  for 
the  brilliant  accoutrements  of  his  charger  and  himself. 
His  horse  is  covered  with  chain-armor  clasped  wTith 
gold;  and  purple  and  saffron,  and  gold  embroidery — 
the  full  splendors  of  Asiatic  costume  which  he  affects — 
mark  him  out  as  a tempting  prey.  It  might  have  been, 
the  poet  suggests,  a desire  to  deck  some  of  her  national 
temples  writh  such  distinguished  spoils, — or  it  might 
have  been,  he  admits,  only  a woman’s  fancy  to  wear 
them  herself, — but  she  singles  him  out  and  chases  him 
over  the  field,  regardless  of  her  own  safety.  Arruns 
the  Tuscan  has  long  sought  his  opportunity,  and  his 
spear  reaches  Camilla  as  she  gallops  in  headlong  pursuit 
of  her  gay  enemy. 

“ In  vain  she  strives  with  dying  hands 
To  wrench  away  the  blade: 

Fixed  in  her  ribs  the  weapon  stands, 

Closed  by  the  wound  it  made. 


1 50 


VIRGIL. 


Bloodless  and  faint,  she  gasps  for  breath; 

Her  heavy  eyes  sink  down  in  death ; 

Her  cheek’s  bright  colors  fade.” 

So  dies  Camilla;  and  the  Yolscian  horse  are  so  dis- 
heartened by  her  loss  that  they  turn  and  fly  to  the  city, 
so  closely  pursued  by  the  Trojans  that  the  gates  have  to 
be  hastily  closed,  shutting  out  in  many  cases  friends  as 
well  as  foes.  Turnus  leaves  the  cover  of  the  wood  to 
attack  iEneas,  but  night  falls  on  the  plain  before  their 
forces  meet. 


Chapter  XIII. 

THE  LAST  COMBAT. 

The  spirit  of  the  Latins  is  wellnigh  broken — they  feel 
that  their  cause  is  a failing  one.  And  Turnus  sees 
angry  eyes  bent  upon  him,  as  the  cause  of  this  ill-fated 
war.  He  will  take  all  hazards,  then,  upon  himself: 
there  shall  be  no  more  blood  shed  of  Latin  or  Rutulian 
— unless  it  be  his  own.  He  declares  his  intention  to 
Latinus — he  will  meet  iEneas  in  single  combat.  The 
old  king  is  reluctant  to  allow  it:  Queen  Amata,  with 
tears  and  prayers,  begs  him  to  forego  his  resolution. 
Lavinia  herself — such  is  the  entire  reticence  of  the 
maiden  nature  in  epic  story — speaks  no  word  through- 
out the  whole.  But,  as  modern  critics  have  long  dis- 
covered, there  is  no  question  but  that  she  has  a senti- 
ment for  Turnus.  She  hardly  could  have  a thought  of 
iEneas,  whom  she  had  never  seen.  When  she  hears 
her  mother’s  appeal  to  the  Rutulian  prince,  she  does 
almost  more  than  speak — she  blushes,  through  her 
tears. 


THE  LAST  COMBAT. 


151 


“ Deep  crimson  glows  the  sudden  flame, 

And  dyes  her  tingling  cheek  with  shame. 

So  blushes  ivory’s  Indian  grain, 

When  sullied  with  vermilion  stain: 

So  lilies  set  in  roseate  bed 
Enkindle  with  contagious  red.” 

These  last  four  lines,  in  Mr.  Conington’s  version,  read 
like  a bit  of  Waller  or  Lovelace — and  yet  they  are  a 
fairly  close  translation  of  the  original. 

The  challenge  is  sent  to  .Eneas,  and  by  him  joyfully 
accepted.  There  shall  be  solemn  truce  between  Tro- 
jan and  Rutulian,  while  the  rival  champions  do  battle 
for  the  princess  and  the  kingdom.  Turnus,  too,  has 
one  weapon  of  Vulcan’s  forging — his  father’s  sword. 
But  now,  in  his  haste  for  the  combat,  he  snatches  up 
and  girds  on  a blade  of  less  divine  temper.  The  lists 
are  set  between  the  two  lines,  and  the  oaths  duly 
sworn.  iEneas  calls  the  gods  to  witness,  that  if  the 
victory  falls  to  Turnus,  the  Trojans  on  their  part  shall 
retire  at  once  to  Evander’s  colony,  and  make  war  no 
more  on  Latium.  Or  even  if  he  himself  be  the  con- 
queror, he  will  not  treat  the  Latins  as  a conquered 
race: 

“ I will  not  force  Italia’s  land 
To  Teucrian  rule  to  bow; 

I seek  no  sceptre  for  my  hand, 

No  diadem  for  my  brow: 

Let  race  and  race,  unquelled  and  free, 

Join  hands  in  deathless  amity.” 

But  at  once,  before  the  rivals  meet,  by  the  instiga- 
tion of  Juno  the  truce  is  broken  on  the  part  of  the 
Rutulians.  They  have  a strong  fear  that  their  own 
champion,  young  and  gallant  as  he  is,  is  no  equal 
match  in  arms  for  the  great  ^Eneas:  he  is  but  moving 
to  his  death.  So  speaks  the  seer  Tolumnius,  and  points 


152 


VIRGIL. 


to  an  omen  on  the  river -bank:  an  eagle  swooping 
down  upon  a flock  of  swans,  and  bearing  one  off  in  bis 
talons,  but  put  to  flight  when  they  turn  in  a body  and 
pursue  him.  iEneas  is  the  bird  of  prey — they  are  the 
unwarlike  swans;  let  them  but  turn  on  him,  and  he 
too  will  fly.  The  seer  is  not  content  with  the  mere 
exposition  of  auguries;  at  once  he  hurls  his  own  jave- 
lin into  the  Trojan  ranks,  and  brings  down  his  man. 
The  fight  speedily  becomes  general.  iEneas,  unarmed 
and  bareheaded,  rushes  between  the  ranks,  and  is 
wounded  by  an  arrow, while  he  calls  loudly  on  his  own 
men  to  keep  the  truce.  None  knew,  or  cared  to  know, 
from  whose  hand  the  arrow  came:  for  no  man,  says 
the  poet,  was  ever  heard  to  boast  of  such  a coward’s 
shot. 

Then,  while  iEneas  is  led  to  the  camp,  faiut  and 
bleeding,  by  his  son  lulus  and  his  faithful  Achates, — 
while  the  aged  leech,  lapis,  vainly  tries  all  his  skill 
upon  the  wound — for  the  barb  will  not  quit  the  flesh, 
4— 1 Turnus  spreads  slaughter  among  the  Trojan  ranks. 
But  only  for  a while.  Venus  drops  a healing  balsam 
into  the  water  with  winch  her  son’s  wound  is  being 
bathed;  at  once  the  arrow-head  drops  out,  and  the 
hero  stands  up  sound  and  wrhole.  Again  he  dons  the 
Vulcanian  armor,  and  re-enters  the  battle.  The 
Itutulians  give  w7ay  before  him,  but  he  scorns  to  smite 
the  fugitives,  and  seeks  out  only  Turnus.  And  Tur- 
nus, pale  and  unnerved — for  the  presage  of  his  fate 
lies  heavy  upon  his  soul — has  no  longer  any  mind  to 
meet  him.  It  is  very  strange,  to  our  modern  notions 
of  heroism,  to  see  this  infirmity  of  resolution  in  a tried 
soldier  and  captain  like  Turnus.  But  the  heroes  of 
these  elder  days  lose  heart  at  once  when  they  feel 
their  star  is  no  longer  in  the  ascendant.  Turnus,  like 


THE  LAST  COMBAT 


153 


Hector  in  the  Iliad,  shrinks  from  the  fate  which  he 
foresees. 

Turnus  has  a sister,  Juturna,  a river -nymph  and 
demi- goddess,  a favorite  of  Juno,  who  has  warned 
her  if  possible  to  save  her  brother.  She  now  takes 
the  place  of  his  charioteer,  and,  while  she  drives 
rapidly  over  the  field,  takes  care  to  keep  him  far  from 
iEneas,  who  is  calling  loudly  on  him  to  halt  and  keep 
his  compact  of  personal  duel.  At  last  the  Trojan 
leader,  baffled  in  this  object,  throws  all  his  forces 
suddenly  on  the  town,  which  lies  almost  at  his  mercy, 
stripped  of  its  defenders,  and  bids  his  captains  bring 
torches  and  scaling-ladders.  A horseman,  sorely 
wounded  in  the  face,  brings  word  of  this  new  danger 
to  Turnus  as  he  is  wheeling  madly  over  the  battle- 
field, and  implores  him  to  come  to  the  rescue.  He 
looks  round  towards  the  walls,  and  sees  the  flames 
already  mounting.  Then  he  rallies  once  more  the  old 
courage  which  had  so  strangely  failed  him.  He  sees 
his  fate  as  clearly  as  before,  but  he  will  meet  it.  He 
knows  his  sister  now,  too  late,  in  his  charioteer;  but 
he  will  fly  no  longer — “Is  death  such  great  wretched- 
ness, after  all?”  He  leaps  from  his  chariot,  as  he 
knows,  to  meet  it,  lifts  his  hand,  and  shouts  to  his 
Rutuliaus  to  stay  their  hands,  and  the  ranks  of 
both  armies  divide  before  him  as  he  makes  towards 
the  part  of  the  wall  where  .ZEneas  is  leading  the 
attack. 

“ But  great  JEneas,  when  he  hears 
The  eh  iliengi  of  his  foe, 

Tli?  leaguer  of  the  town  forbears, 

Lets  town  and  rampart  go, 

Steps  high  with  exultation  proud, 

And  thunders  on  his  arms  aloud; 

Vast  as  majestic  Athos,  vast 


154 


VIRGIL. 


As  Eryx  the  divine, 

Or  he  that  roaring  with  the  blast 
Heaves  his  huge  bulk  in  snow-drifts  massed, 

The  father  Apennine.” 

Trojans,  Latins,  and  Rutulians  look  on  in  awe  and 
admiration  as  the  two  chiefs  advance  to  try  this  last 
ordeal  of  battle.  Each  hurls  his  spear — without  effect; 
then  Turnus  draws  his  sword,  and  they  fight  on  hand 
to  hand — 


“ Giving  and  taking  wounds  alike, 

With  furious  impact  home  they  strike; 

Shoulder  and  neck  are  bathed  in  gore: 

The  forest  depths  return  the  roar. 

So,  shield  on  shield,  together  dash 
iEneas  and  his  Daunian  foe ; 

The  echo  of  that  deafening  crash 
Mounts  heavenward  from  below.” 

But  the  faithless  sword  which  Turnus  had  so  carelessly 
girded  on  instead  of  his  father’s  good  weapon,  though 
it  has  done  him  fair  service  on  the  crowd  of  meaner 
enemies,  breaks  in  his  grasp  when  he  essays  it  on  the 
armor  of  iEneas,  and,  thus  helpless,  he  takes  to  flight, 
iEneas  hotly  pursuing. 

“ Five  times  they  circle  round  the  place, 
t Five  times  the  winding  course  retrace; 

No  trivial  game  is  here:  the  strife 
Is  waged  for  Turnus’  own  dear  life.” 

A dark-plumaged  bird  is  seen  to  hover  round  the 
devoted  head  of  the  Rutuliau  chief,  half  blinding  him 
with  its  flapping  wings.  It  is  a Fury  whom  the  king 
of  the  gods  has  sent  in  that  shape  to  harass  him. 
At  length,  in  his  flight,  he  finds  a huge  stone,  which 
not  twelve  men  of  “to-day’s  degenerate  sons”  could 
lift. 


THE  LAST  COMBAT 


155 


“ He  caught  it  up,  and  at  his  foe 
Discharged  it,  rising  to  the  throw, 

And  straining  as  he  runs. 

But  ’wildering  fears  his  mind  unman; 
Running,  he  knew  not  that  he  ran, 

Nor  throwing  that  he  threw; 

Heavily  move  his  sinking  knees; 

The  streams  of  life  wax  dull  and  freeze; 

The  stone,  as  through  the  void  it  past, 

Failed  of  the  measure  of  its  cast, 

Nor  held  its  purpose  true. 

E’en  as  in  dreams,  when  on  the  eyes 
The  drowsy  weight  of  slumber  lies. 

In  vain  to  ply  our  limbs  we  think, 

And  in  the  helpless  effort  sink ; 

Tongue,  sinews,  all,  their  powers  bely, 

And  voice  and  speech  our  call  defy: 

So,  labor  Turnus  as  he  will, 

The  Fury  mocks  the  endeavor  still. 

Dim  shapes  before  his  senses  reel: 

On  host  and  town  he  turns  his  sight: 

He  quails,  he  trembles  at  the  steel, 

Nor  knows  to  fly,  nor  knows  to  fight: 

Nor  to  his  pleading  eyes  appear 
The  car,  the  sister  charioteer. 

46  The  deadly  dart  iEneas  shakes: 

His  aim  with  stern  precision  takes. 

Then  hurls  with  all  his  frame; 

Less  loud  from  battering-engine  cast 
Roars  the  fierce  stone,  less  loud  the  blast 
Follows  the  lightning’s  flame. 

On  rushes  as  with  whirlwind  wings 
The  spear  that  dire  destruction  brings, 

Makes  passage  through  the  corselet’s  marge, 
And  enters  the  seven -plated  targe 
Where  the  last  ring  runs  round. 

The  keen  point  pierces  through  the  thigh, 
Down  on  his  bent  knee  heavily 
Comes  Turnus  to  the  ground.” 


156 


VIRGIL. 


The  Rutulian  prince  confesses  his  defeat,  and  asks 
his  life  in  no  craven  spirit,  for  the  sake  of  his  aged  fa- 
ther— bidding  iEneas  think  of  old  Anchises.  The  con- 
queror half  relents,  when  his  eyes  fall  upon  something 
which  makes  that  appeal  worse  than  useless. 

“ Rolling  his  eyes,  iEneas  stood, 

And  checked  his  sword,  athirst  for  blood. 

Now  faltering  more  and  more  he  felt 
The  human  heart  within  him  melt, 

When  round  the  shoulder  wreathed  in  pride 
The  belt  of  Pallas  he  espied, 

And  sudden  flashed  upon  his  view 
Those  golden  studs  so  well  he  knew, 

Which  Turnus  in  his  hour  of  joy 
Stripped  from  the  newty-slaughtered  boy. 

And  on  his  bosom  bore,  to  show 
The  triumph  of  a satiate  foe. 

Soon  as  his  eyes  at  one  fell  draught 
Remembrance  and  revenge  had  quaffed, 

Live  fury  kindling  every  vein, 

He  cries  with  terrible  disdain: 

‘ What!  in  my  friend’s  dear  spoils  arrayed 
To  me  for  mercy  sue? 

’Tis  Pallas,  Pallas  guides  the  blade; 

From  your  cursed  blood  his  injured  shade 
Thus  takes  the  atonement  due.’ 

Thus  as  he  spoke,  his  sword  he  drave 
With  fierce  and  fiery  blow 
Through  the  broad  breast  before  him  spread ; 

The  stalwart  limbs  grow  cold  and  dead ; 

One  groan  the  indignant  spirit  gave, 

Then  sought  the  shades  below.” 


So  closes  the  ,/Encid.  Does  any  reader  complain 
that  the  poet  has  not  carried  the  story  further?  With 
the  death  of  Turnus  the  catastrophe  is  complete.  The 
princess  of  Latin m is  the  prize  of  the  victor;  and  the 
loves  of  iEneas  and  Lavinia  are  certainly  not  of  that 


THE  LAST  COMBAT 


157 


romantic  character  that  we  need  care  to  follow  them. 
The  Trojans  are  settled  in  Italy — two  races  under  one 
name.  For  so  has  Jupiter  promised,  as  some  indul- 
gence to  the  feelings  of  his  queen,  that  the  old  Latin 
name  shall  at  least  not  be  merged  in  the  detested  name 
of  Trojan,  and  on  such  terms  has  the  goddess  reluc- 
tantly acquiesced  in  the  settlement  of  the  wanderers 
on  Italian  ground.  Latins,  not  Trojans,  are  to  rule 
the  world.  Thus  has  the  poet  combined  the  indige- 
nous glories  of  his  country  with  the  grand  descent  of  its 
rulers  from  the  old  mythical  heroes  of  Troy. 

Yet  there  is  a singular  vein  of  melancholy  to  be  traced 
in  the  words  of  iEneas,  when  he  parts  with  his  son  be- 
fore he  goes  to  his  last  victory.  They  are  perhaps  the 
noblest  words  which  the  poet  has  put  into  his  mouth, 
and  they  have  something  of  the  sadness  which  more  or 
less  affects  all  true  nobility: 

“ In  his  mailed  arms  his  child  he  pressed, 

Kissed  through  his  helm,  and  thus  addressed: 

4 Learn  of  your  father  to  be  great, 

Of  others  to  be  fortunate.’  ” 

The  old  tradition — well  known,  no  doubt,  to  Virgil’s 
audience  and  first  readers — was  that  the  son,  not  the 
father,  lived  to  enjoy  the  sovereignty  of  Latium.  The 
hero  of  many  vicissitudes  was  not  held  to  have  settled 
down  into  the  peaceful  rest  which  he  looks  forward  to, 
throughout  the  poet’s  story,  as  the  end  of  all  his  cam- 
paigns and  wanderings.  The  Rutulians,  so  said  the 
legends,  would  not  yet  bow  to  the  foreign  usurper;  and 
^Sneas  fought  his  last  battle  with  them  on  the  banks  of 
the  river  Numicius,  and  then,  like  so  many  of  the  fa- 
vorite heroes  of  a people,  disappeared;  either  carried, 
living  or  dead,  by  some  divine  agency,  to  heaven,  or 
caught  away  in  the  arms  of  the  river- god. 


158 


VIRGIL. 


CnAPTER  XIV. 

CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 

The  iEneid  has  two  drawbacks  to  its  popularity  as 
an  epic  poem  amongst  modern  readers.  One  defect 
is  common  to  all  classical  fiction — that  there  is  no 
love-romance,  properly  so  called,  on  the  part  either  of 
-the  hero  or  of  any  other  male  character  in  the  poem. 
Love,  as  now  understood,  has  no  place  either  in  Virgil 
or  Homer.  We  find  in  their  verse  none  of  those 
finer  shades  of  feeling,  that  loyal  personal  allegiance, 
that  high  unselfish  devotion,  the  mysterious  sympathy, 
as  untranslatable  by  anything  but  itself  as  the  most 
perfect  wording  of  the  poet,  which,  nursed,  it  has 
been  said,  in  the  lap  of  Northern  chivalry,  but  surely 
of  much  older  birth,  has  given  now  for  centuries  to 
poet  and  to  novelist  their  highest  charm  and  inspira- 
tion. Poets  had  to  sing  as  they  could  without  it  in 
Virgil’s  days.  Augustus  and  Octavia,  as  they  listened 
to  the  courtly  raconteur , would  have  opened  their  eyes 
wide  with  astonishment  if  he  had  sung  to  them  of  the 
devotion  of  Lancelot,  as  surely  as  they  would  have 
laughed  at  the  purity  of  Galahad.  They  understood 
what  love  was,  in  their  fashion;  many  ladies  of  the 
court  sympathized  with  Dido,  no  doubt.  They  under- 
stood well  enough  “the  fury  of  a woman  scorned.” 
They  had  seen  a whole  love-poem  in  real  life,  with 
the  appropriate  tragical  denouement , in  Antony  and 
Cleopatra.  That  was  their  notion  of  the  grand  pas- 
sion. Probably  the  more  shrewd  among  them  looked 
upon  Antony  as  a fool  to  prefer  “love”  to  empire, 
and  applauded  iEneas’s  “piety”  in  ©keying  the 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS. ' 


159 


oracles  of  the  gods,  when  they  pointed  to  a new  wife 
whose  dowry  was  a kingdom.  There  was  quite  love 
enough  in  the  action  of  the  poem  to  suit  their  tastes, 
and  at  anything  better  or  purer  they  would  have  only 
shrugged  their  fair  patrician  shoulders. 

But  there  is  a more  serious  defect  in  the  interest  of 
the  iEneid,  when  presented  to  English  readers.  It  is, 
that  iEneas  is  no  hero.  All  the  defences  and  apolo, 
gies  which  have  been  made  for  him  are  perfectly  just, 
and  perfectly  unnecessary.  He  was  a hero  quite  good 
enough  for  the  court  of  Augustus,  and  so  far  quite 
suitable  for  Virgil’s  purpose.  Le  Bossu  was  perfectly 
right  when  he  contended  that  a hero,  to  be  an  object 
of  legitimate  interest,  need  not  be  a pattern  of  moral 
virtues.  He  might  have  gone  further,  and  said  that 
such  paragons,  who  are  plainly  superior  to  the  ordinary 
weaknesses  of  human  nature,  generally  make  very  dull 
heroes  indeed.  Undoubtedly  HSneas  is  a dutiful  son, 
a respectable  father,  and,  it  may  even  be  admitted,  in 
spite  of  the  unfortunate  way  in  which  he  lost  his  wife, 
an  exemplary  husband.  He  spread  his  palms  out  to 
heaven  in  the  most  orthodox  fashion  on  all  occasions, 
and  listened  obediently  to  the  message  which  the  gods 
were  always  sending  him,  to  set  up  his  home  in  Latium 
at  all  costs.  All  these  estimable  qualities  are  enough 
to  furnish  forth  a dozen  heroes.  He  is  also  ready  to 
fight  on  all  proper  occasions;  and  as  to  the  charge 
that  he  is  equally  ready  to  weep  upon  all  occasions, 
which  has  been  brought  against  him  by  one  set  of 
critics,  and  excused  by  others,  both  might  have  spared 
their  pens;  for  it  is  a weakness  which  may  be  charged 
with  equal  truth  upon  most  of  the  heroes,  not  only  of 
classical  fiction,  but  of  classical  history.  It  is  not 
only  that  the  chiefs  of  the  Iliad  weep  without  fearing 


160 


VIRGIL. 


any  imputation  against  their  manliness,  but  if  we  are 
to  trust  the  unsensational  chronicles  of  Caesar,  the 
whole  rank  and  file  of  his  army,  even  the  veterans  of 
the  tenth  legion  — the  “fighting  division” — when  first 
they  heard  that  they  were  to  be  led  against  the  tall 
and  truculent -looking  Germans,  “could  not  restrain 
their  tears,”  and  set  to  work  to  make  their  wills  forth- 
with. The  thing  is  unaccountable,  except  from  some 
strange  difference  of  temperament;  for  who  can  imag- 
ine a company  of  our  veriest  raw  ploughboy  recruits 
so  behaving  themselves?  They  might  shake  in  their 
very  shoes;  they  might  even  very  probably  run  away: 
but  crying  and  howling  is  not  our  way  of  expressing 
emotion,  after  childhood  is  past.  But  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  read  of  such  exhibitions  of  feeling  in  the 
natives  of  warmer  climates,  as,  for  instance,  in  the 
characters  of  Scripture;  and  an  occasional  burst  of 
tears  on  Eneas’s  part  would  not  have  unheroed  him 
in  our  estimation  one  whit.  It  is  his  desertion  of 
Dido  which  makes  an  irredeemable  poltroon  of  him  in 
all  honest  English  eyes.  A woman  and  a queen  receives 
the  shipwrecked  wanderer  with  a more  than  Oriental 
hospitality;  loves  him,  “not  wisely  but  too  well” — 
and  he  deserts  her.  And  then  Mercury  is  made  to 
remark,  as  a reason  for  iEneas  getting  away  as  quickly 
as  possible,  that  “ varium  et  mutabile  semper  fwmina,!” 
— that  the  poor  lady's  mood  was  changeable,  forsooth! 
The  desertion  is  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  gods, 
no  doubt.  That  explanation  satisfied  the  critics  of 
Augustus’s  day,  and  he  was  to  them,  as  Virgil  calls 
him,  the  “pious”  iEneas.  To  the  modern  reader, 
such  an  authorization  only  makes  the  treachery  more 
disgusting.  The  morality  of  English  romance,  ancient 
or  modern,  is  by  no  means  immaculate.  Tristram  and 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 


161 


Iseult,  still  more  Lancelot  and  Guinevere,  are  of  very 
frail  clay.  The  Sir  Galaliads  ride  alone;  then,  now, 
and  always,  in  fiction  as  in  fact.  But  a hero  who 
could  be  false  to  a woman,  and  who  was  to  find  in 
that  falsehood  the  turning-point  to  fame  and  success, 
— he  might  befit  the  loose  tale  with  which  the  rybauder 
raised  a laugh  round  the  camp-fire,  but  he  was  the 
subject  of  no  lay  to  which  noble  knight  or  dame  would 
listen.  The  passion  might  be  only_p&r$  amours , but 
it  must  be  loyal.  To  keep  such  faith,  once  pledged, 
the  hero  might  break  all  other  laws,  divine  or  human; 
but  keep  it  he  must.  11  Loyaulte  passe  tout , et  faulsse- 
ie  honnet  tout.”  The  principle  is  by  no  means  the 
highest,  but  it  is  incomparably  higher  than  Virgil’s. 
And  this  makes  Lancelot,  in  spite  of  his  great  crime,  a 
hero  in  one  sense,  even  to  the  purest  mind,  while  the 
calculating  piety  of  iEneas  is  revolting. 

The  apologetic  criticisms  of  some  translators,  who 
have  felt  themselves  bound  not  only  to  give  a faithful 
version  of  their  author,  but  to  defend  his  conception 
of  a hero,  are  highly  entertaining.  Dryden,  who  was 
said  by  one  of  his  malicious  critics  to  have  written 
“for  the  court  ladies,”  admits  candidly  that  he  knows 
they  “will  make  a numerous  party  against  him,”  and 
that  he  “cannot  much  blame  them,  for,  to  say  the 
truth,  it  is  an  ill  precedent  for  their  gallants  to  follow 
winding  up  with  a satirical  suggestion  that  they  would 
do  well  at  least  “to  learn  experience  at  her  cost.” 
But  in  spite  of  this  special  pleading,  even  Dryden 
cannot  conceal  from  himself  that  his  hero  makes  but  a 
very  poor  figure  in  this  part  of  the  story;  nor  can  he 
resist  the  humorous  remark  that  he  was  more  afraid  of 
Dido,  after  all,  than  of  Jupiter.  “For  you  may  ob- 
serve,” says  he,  “that  as  much  intent  as  he  was  upon 


162 


VIRGIL. . 


bis  voyage,  yet  lie  still  delayed  it  until  the  messenger 
was  obliged  to  tell  him  plainly,  that  if  he  weighed  not 
anchor  in  the  night,  the  queen  would  be  with  him  in 
the  morning.”  Delille  says  that  iEneas  “triumphed 
over  his  passions  in  order  to  obey  the  will  of  heaven;” 
and  forgets  to  add,  that  the  triumph  would  have  been, 
more  complete  and  more  creditable  if  it  had  been 
achieved  somewhat  earlier  in  the  story.  He  notices 
the  unfortunate  fate  of  poor  Creusa, — left  to  follow  as 
she  might,  and  never  missed  till  the  more  fortunate 
survivors  met  at  the  rendezvous, — only  to  say  how 
necessaiy  it  was  for  the  purposes  of  the  story  to  dispose 
of  her  somehow,  if  there  was  a new  wife  awaiting 
AEneas  in  Italy;  and  how  the  account  (his  own  ac- 
count) of  his  affectionate  search  for  her  (with  the  usual 
tears)  must  have  recommended  him  to  Dido,  and  ex- 
cused that  poor  lady  for  falling  in  love  with  him 
instantly!  Rousseau  has  more  truth  in  his  epigram, — 
what  could  Dido  expect  better  from  a man  who  left  his 
lawful  wife  to  be  burnt  in  Troy,  and  vowed  he  never 
missed  her?  Segrais,  very  like  a Frenchman  of  the  days 
of  Louis  XIV.,  thinks  all  would  have  been  right  if  JSneas 
had  but  thrown  a little  more  sentiment  into  the  parting, 
and  had  bestowed  upon  Dido  a few  of  those  tears  which 
were  so  ready  upon  less  pathetic  occasions.*  As  to  the 


* Dido  has  always  been  a favorite  heroine  with  Frenchmen, 
and  has  been  worked  up  into  three  or  four  tragedies.  One  writer, 
partly  adopting  M.  Segrais’ s notion  of  how  things  ought  to  have 
been — that  is  to  say,  how  a Frenchman  would  have  behaved  him- 
self when  such  a parting  was  inevitable — has  made  iEneas  take 
lit  least  a civil  farewell  of  the  injured  queen: 

“Helas!  si  de  mon  sort  j’avais  ici  mon  choix, 

Bornant  & vous  aimer  le  bonheur  de  ma  vie, 

Je  tiendrais  de  vos  mains  un  sceptre,  une  patrie: 

Les  dieux  m’ont  envie  le  seul  de  leurs  bienfaits, 

Qui  pourait  rSparer  tous  les  maux  qu’ils  m’ont  faits.” 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS . 


163 


scene  in  the  Shades,  where  the  false  lover  begins  at  last 
to  make  his  tardy  excuses  and  apologies,  the  French 
critic  fairly  throws  up  his  brief  for  the  defence,  and 
contents  himself  with  the  suggestion  that  this  was  one 
of  those  passages  in  the  poem  with  which  Virgil  himself 
was  dissatisfied,  and  which  he  must  certainly  have  in- 
tended to  correct.  But  iEneas  has,  in  fact,  little 
personal  character  of  any  kind.  He  is  only  what  Keble 
calls  him,  “a  shadow  with  a mighty  name;”  and  that 
writer  even  goes  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  in  the  curse 
imprecated  upon  him  by  Dido,  and  her  treatment  of  him 
in  the  Shades,  we  may  see  an  intimation  that  the  poet 
intended  the  abasement  of  his  hero.* 

Turnus  will  always  find  more  favor  in  the  eyes  of 
modern  readers  than  his  rival.  Our  English  sympathies 
do  not  run  at  all  with  the  foreign  adventurer  who  comes 
between  him  and  his  promised  bride,  and  who  claims 
both  the  lady  and  the  kingdom  by  virtue  of  a convenient 
oracle.  Mr.  Gladstone’s  may  perhaps  be  only  an  in- 
genious fancy,  that  Turnus  was  really  the  favorite  with 
the  poet  himself;  that  although  he  made  JEneas  victori- 
ous as  was  required,  in  order  to  carry  out  the  compli- 
mentary reference  of  the  Roman  origin  to  Troy,  still  the 
3Toung  chief  of  native  Italian  blood,  maintaining  a 


And  Dido,  mollified  by  this  declaration,  far  from  cursing  the 
fugitive  lover  in  her  last  moments,  assures  him  of  her  unchange- 
able affection,  rather  apologizing  for  having  so  inconveniently 
fallen  in  his  way,  and  delayed  him  so  improperly  from  Lavinia 
and  his  kingdom: 

“ Et  toi,  d’ont  j’ai  trouble  la  haute  destin^e, 

Toi,  qui  ne  m’entends  plus— adieux,  mon  cher  JE>n6e  1 
Ne  crains  point  ma  colere— elle  expire  avec  moi, 

Et  mes  derniers  soupirs  sont  encore  pour  toi!”  t 
* Prselect.,  ii.  724. 
t Franc  de  Porapignan,  “ Didon.” 


164 


VIRGIL . 


gallant  struggle  for  liis  rights  against  gods  and  men,  and 
only  conquered  at  the  last  by  supernatural  force  and 
fraud,  was  purposely  held  out  to  popular  admiration. 
But  we  must,  at  least,  feel  sympathy  with  him  as 
utterly  overweighted  in  the  final  struggle  by  the  supe- 
rior strength  and  immortal  arms  of  his  adversary,  and 
the  flapping  of  the  Fury’s  awful  wings. 

To  trace  the  influence  of  the  iEneid  upon  modern 
poetry  would  require  a separate  treatise.  Spenser  is  full 
of  Virgil.  Tasso’s  great  poem  is  in  many  passages  the 
JEneid  made  Christian,  with  its  heroes  transplanted 
from  the  days  of  Troy  to  those  of  the  Crusades.  Dante 
borrows  less  from  him,  though  with  an  intenser  rever- 
ence he  takes  him  for  his  “ master”  and  his  guide.  In 
his  mind,  indeed,  Virgil  seems  to  have  held  a place 
midway,  as  it  were,  between  the  pagan  and  the  Chris, 
tian  life.  If  Beatrice  represents,  as  has  been  said,  the 
heavenly  “ Wisdom,”  Virgil  is,  in  his  allegory,  the 
human  intellect  at  its  best  and  purest,  which  comes  as 
near  heaven  as  unassisted  humanity  may;  for  he  is  the 
guide  who  only  quits  the  Christian  poet  when  he  is  close 
to  the  gates  of  Paradise. 

The  “ Sortes  Virgilianse”  were  long  in  use,  often  as  a 
fashionable  pastime,  sometimes  in  graver  earnest:  the 
inquirer  opened  the  volume  at  random,  and  took  for  the 
answer  of  fate  the  first  few  lines  which  caught  his  eye. 
In  the  times  of  the  later  Roman  emperors  they  ranked 
among  the  most  popular,  and  perhaps  the  least  objection- 
able, of  the  many  superstitious  practices  which  were 
then  so  prevalent.  The  Emperor  Severus  was  said  to 
have  been  encouraged  in  his  boyhood  by  the  very  words 
which  had  such  an  effect  on  Octavia — “Thou  shalt  be 
our  Marcellus!”  And  when  subsequently  he  showed  a 
taste  rather  for  elegant  accomplishments  than  for 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 


165 


military  renown,  again  the  “ Sortes,”  consulted  for  him 
by  his  father,  gave  the  well-known  lines  already  quoted,* 
in  which  the  glory  of  the  Roman  is  pronounced  to  be 
that  of  the  conqueror  not  of  the  student  or  the  artist. 
The  superstition  held  its  ground,  through  the  middle 
ages,  down  to  times  very  near  our  own.  The  story 
rests  upon  no  mean  authority  that  Charles  I.  once  tried 
the  oracle  with  a startling  result.  He  was  in  the  Bod' 
leian  Library  while  the  Court  lay  in  Oxford,  and  was 
there  shown  a splendid  edition  of  Virgil.  Lord  Falk- 
land suggested  to  him  sportively  that  he  should  try  the 
“ Sortes.”  The  lines  upon  which  the  king  opened  are 
said  to  have  been  these,  as  they  stand  in  Mr.  Coning- 
ton’s  version: 

“ Scourged  by  a savage  enemy, 

An  exile  from  his  son’s  embrace, 

So  let  him  sue  for  aid,  and  see 
His  people  slain  before  his  face: 

Or  when  to  humbling  peace  at  length 
He  stoops,  be  his  or  life  or  land, 

But  let  him  fall  in  manhood’s  strengths 
And  welter  tombless  on  the  sand.” 

It  was  a gloomy  oracle;  and  Falkland,  anxious  to  re* 
move  the  impression,  tried  his  own  fortune.  He  lighted 
on  Evander’s  lament  over  his  son  Pallas : 

“ I knew  the  young  blood’s  maddening  play, 

The  charm  of  battle’s  first  essay; 

O valor  blighted  in  the  flower ! 

O first  mad  drops  of  war’s  full  shower!” 

A few  months  afterwards  Falkland  fell  at  the  battle  of 
Newbury,  barely  thirty-four  years  old. 

^There  has  always  been  a mystical  school  of  classical 


* P.  111. 


166 


VIRGIL. 


interpretation,  who  see  in  the  iEneid,  as  in  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey,  a tissue  of  allegory  from  first  to  last.  Not 
content  with  identifying  the  Trojan  chief  with  Augus- 
tus, they  found  a double  meaning  in  every  character 
and  every  legend  in  the  poem.  Bishop  Warburton,  in 
his  well-known  “Divine  Legation, ” expended  a great 
amount  of  learning  and  research  to  prove  that  in  the 
Descent  to  the  Shades  in  the  sixth  book  we  have  a sketch, 
scarcely  veiled,  of  the  great  Eleusinian  mysteries.  Others 
saw  in  Dido  the  love-passion  and  the  fate  of  Cleopatra, 
Antony  in  Turnus,  the  flight  of  Marius  to  the  marshes 
in  the  person  of  Sinon,  the  miserable  end  of  Pompey  in 
Priam — 

“ The  head  shorn  off,  the  trunk  without  a name.” 

It  is  impossible  to  enjoy  either  Homer  or  Virgil  if  their 
text  is  to  be  “improved”  at  every  step  after  this  sort. 
Augustus  and  Octavia  looked  to  the  poet  for  a tale  of 
the  olden  time,  and  he  told  it  well.  No  doubt  he  threw 
in  graceful  compliments  to  Rome  and  its  ruler;  but  to 
have  to  guess  at  some  hidden  meaning  all  along  would 
have  been  far  too  severe  a tax  on  the  imperial  audience, 
and  would  certainly  not  heighten  the  enjoyment  of 
modern  readers. 

One  would  be  glad  to  know  what  was  the  view  that 
was  really  taken  by  that  profligate  court  on  the  one 
hand,  and  by  the  poet  himself  on  the  other,  of  the 
theological  machinery  of  the  poem;  those  powerful  and 
passionate  Genii  who  pull  the  wires  of  the  human 
puppets  to  gratify  their  own  preferences  and  hatreds, 
and  are  themselves  the  slaves  of  an  awful  Fate  which 
overrides  them  all.  Wherever  Justice  had  fled  from 
the  earth,  as  the  legend  ran,  in  those  pagan  days,  she 
had  not  found  refuge  in  heaven.  The  human  virtues 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS. 


167 


which  Yirgil  gives  his  heroes  were  no  copies  of  any- 
thing celestial.  Such  lessons  as  the  “gods”  taught 
were  chiefly  perfidy  and  revenge.  For  men  of  intellect 
and  of  a pure  life — and  such  is  credibly  said  to  have 
been  Yirgil’s — the  only  salvation  lay  in  utter  unbelief  of 
such  a creed ; or,  at  most,  a stoical  submission  to  that 
Unknown  Fate  which  ruled  all  tilings  human  and 
divine.  But  even  when  the  forms  and  creeds  of  religion 
had  become  a mockery,  the  rule  of  right,  however 
warped,  was  recognized — in  fiction,  if  not  in  fact:  and 
Yirgil,  though  for  some  reason  he  declined  to  paint  the 
true  hero  at  full  length,  has  enabled  us  to  pick  out  his 
component  parts  from  his  sketches  of  a dozen  characters. 


THE  END. 


